326 " MY KINGDOM FOR A HORSE ! " 



Thus the fat was thoroughly in the fire. 



At the further proceedings in our action against the 

 printers I met Mr Bottomley, who threatened many pains 

 and penalties to our company for infringements of com- 

 pany law. I thereupon had the Hansard Union sued 

 before its chairman, Lord Mayor Isaacs, at the Mansion 

 House for neglecting to register somethingor other Iforget 

 what at Somerset House, and he was obliged to fine them. 



Having now got fairly on the warpath, I brought out 

 an issue of St Stephen's specially devoted to the Hansard 

 Union, with a lovely cartoon in it of Sir Henry Isaacs, in 

 his Lord Mayor's robes, as Millais's picture of Bubbles, 

 the principal bubble being, of course, labelled " The 

 Hansard Publishing Union Limited." These cartoons 

 we printed in large numbers, and they were sold at a 

 penny each outside the Mansion House. 



I think the cartoon was too good to be utterly forgotten 

 so am reproducing it here, though it must be clearly 

 understood that I do so without the slightest vestige of 

 ill feeling by which, indeed, I was at no time actuated. 

 It just serves to show how I fought in a contest that was 

 none of my seeking. 



After this the Hansard Union spent a lot of money 

 on advertisements trying to suggest that Radclyffe had 

 been trying to blackmail them or Mr Bottomley ; but that 

 was all nonsense, as was admitted when our action went 

 a step further and then Sir Charles Russell and another 

 eminent Q.C. were briefed to alarm us. They did not 

 have that effect, and according to terms which Sir Charles 

 Russell himself drew up our printers paid us 50 damages, 

 all imputations on Radclyffe were withdrawn, and we 

 agreed to let the Hansard Union alone until their next 

 balance-sheet was published. Something about those 

 terms did not suit Mr Bottomley, and he wrote to the 

 papers to say that they did not concern the Hansard 

 Union at all, but only us and our printers. The Hansard 

 Union was in fact mentioned four or five times in the 

 terms, so that this action on Mr Bottomley's part started 



