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ingly insignificant touches, which impress the mind often without remaining in the memory.

The best method of guarding against the danger of reading what is useless is to read only what is interesting,—a truth' which will seem a paradox to a whole class of readers, fitting objects of our commiseration, who may be often recognized by their habit of asking some adviser for a list of books, and then marking out a scheme of study in the course of which all these are to be conscientiously perused.

These unfortunate persons apparently read a book principally with the object of getting to the end of it. They reach the word "Finis" with the same sensation of triumph as an Indian feels who strings a fresh scalp to his girdle. They are not happy unless they mark by some definite performance each step in the weary path of self-improvement. To begin a volume and not to finish it would be to deprive themselves of this satisfaction; it would be to lose all the reward of their earlier self-denial by a lapse from virtue at the end. The skip, according to their literary code, is a form of cheating: it is a mode of obtaining credit for erudition on false pretences; a plan by which the advantages of learning are surreptitiously obtained by those who have not won them by honest toil. But all this is quite wrong. In matters literary, works have no saving efficacy. He has only half learned the art of reading who has not added to it the even more refined accomplishments of skipping and of skimming; and the first step has hardly been taken in the direction of making literature a pleasure, until interest in the subject, and not a desire to spare (so to speak) the author's feelings, or to accomplish an appointed task, is the prevailing motive of the reader.

R

CHURCHILL

ANDOLPH HENRY SPENCER CHURCHILL, a noted English politician, was the third son of the seventh Duke of Marlborough, and was born at Blenheim Palace, Woodstock, England, February 15, 1849. He was educated at Merton College, Oxford, and entered the House of Commons as member for Woodstock in 1874. After 1880 he was conspicuous for his attacks upon the Liberal party and was the leader of the so-called "Fourth Party." He was Secretary of State for India in 1885, and Chancellor of the Exchequer and leader of the House during Lord Salisbury's second administration in 1886. He resigned in December of that year and was then returned to the House as member for South Paddington, and again in 1892. He travelled in South Africa in 1891 on account of his failing health, and on his return to England was especially active in Parliament as a leader of the Opposition and in making platform speeches about the country. It was evident that he was more or less unbalanced as a result of disease, and his death occurred in London, January 24, 1895. He was one of the most prominent Tory politicians of his time, and an eloquent speaker, but his political course was erratic and misleading. He was the author of "Speeches (1889); "Men, Mines, and Animals in South Africa" (1892).

ON THE EGYPTIAN CRISIS

A SPEECH DELIVERED IN PRINCE'S HALL, PICCADILLY,}
FEBRUARY, 16, 1884

[The fall of Sinkat and the massacre of its garrison excited indignation in all Conservative minds. When the announcement was made in the House of Lords on the twelfth inst., Lord Salisbury moved a vote of censure on the government, describing its policy pursued in Egypt as "vacillating and inconsistent," and also as an act of blood-guiltiness.” A similar vote was moved in the House of Commons by Sir Stafford Northcote. Indignation meetings were held everywhere, and the Liberal government seemed tottering to its fall.]

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Y LORDS AND GENTLEMEN,-I rise for the purpose of moving the first resolution, and in order

MY

that we may consider that resolution with advantage

I would beg all these gentlemen here who do not altogether concur with the views which we are going to expound, to listen to the discussion with equanimity, and, if possible, to reply to the arguments we may urge.

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It would conduce more to the dignity of a London meeting, it will conduce more to the maintenance of the high character of the citizens of this great metropolis, if any gentleman who have counter-opinions to urge to those of the majority of the meeting will come to the platform and address us. We have, gentlemen, to-day to set an example to the country: let us first set an example of order. The resolution which I have to propose is in these terms:

"That in the opinion of this meeting, her Majesty's gov ernment are solely responsible for the anarchy which prevails in Egypt, and the bloodshed which has occurred, and which is imminent in the Soudan, and that the vacillitating and pusillanimous policy of the Ministers deserve the severest censure of the country."

We are gathered together this afternoon for a serious purpose; no other, indeed, than to pronounce, after due deliberation, the strongest and most resolute condemnation of Mr. Gladstone's Egyptian policy, and our detestation and abhorrence of the bloodshed and misery of which he has been the immediate and direct cause. I say Mr. Gladstone's Egyptian policy, because I utterly decline to recognize as responsible agents either his ministerial colleagues or his parliamentary supporters.

Those parties have so wallowed in a stifling morass of the most degraded and servile worship of the Prime Minister that they have sunk below the level of slaves; they have become mere puppets, the objects of derision and contempt; they have lost all claim to the title of Englishmen, and I think they have lost all claim to the title of rational human beings.

To give you an instance of the abject imbecility which has struck down the Liberal party, I would mention what occurred in the House of Commons on Thursday night. Mr.

Forster, in that great speech which he made that evening— a speech in which he promised one vote to the government in the House of Commons, and alienated a hundred thousand votes from the government in the country-Mr. Forster, I say, expressed the opinion that the government ought to have rescued the garrison of Sinkat.

"How?" cried out some importunate Liberals. "How?" was the plaintive cry they raised.

"How?" shouted Mr. Forster, turning upon them, so that they wished themselves a hundred leagues under the sea, "How? why, by doing a fortnight earlier what they are doing now, sending British soldiers to the garrison's rescue."

There is a good instance of the hopeless and incurable mental alienation to which the once free and independent Liberal party have been reduced by Mr. Gladstone! It was indeed a melancholy spectacle.

I said that our purpose this afternoon was a serious one, and it is so. It is a serious thing for Englishmen to meet together in open day for the purpose of doing all they can to destroy a government. But we are not alone. Thousands of your countrymen have already met, and thousands more will meet, animated by the same feelings as yourselves, and, like yourselves, resolved to exhaust their energies in a supreme effort to avert further disgrace from our names, future defeat from our army, and ultimate ruin from our country, by dashing from his pride of place the evil and moonstruck minister who has brought England into grievous peril.

Perilous, I say, is our condition, for it is perilous for a country to shed human blood in vain; it is perilous for a country to assume responsibilities which it is too cowardly to discharge; it is perilous for a country to permit its foreign interests to be in such a condition that any morning we may

awake to hear Europe demanding reparation and even

vengeance.

Once again, for the fourth time in four years, do the ministry, whose programme was peace, and whose component parts were Quakers, call upon you to give them authority to wage a bloody war.

Of their former wars the results have been either infamous or futile-infamy in the south of Africa; futility in the north of Africa. Will you, I ask, with these memories still fresh in your minds, permit these false guides again to direct your course?

There can be but one answer. If war is again to be urged; if British blood and British treasure are again to be poured forth; if the regeneration of Egypt and the East is once more to be taken in hand, then other heads must do the work and other policies must be pursued.

A Parliament which has long ceased to represent England must be dissolved, and a ministry, for a parallel to which you must go back to the days of Shaftesbury or Lord North, must be placed on its trial by the people.

We have to provide for the safety of the hero Gordon; for the safety of the 4,000 British soldiers sent to Suakim; for the safety of the garrisons of the Soudan, 30,000 souls in all, whose one and only hope is now reposed in you. Above all, we have to provide for the safety of our position in the Delta of the Nile.

Shall labors such as these, interests so tremendous and so vital, be committed to the hands of Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues, men who have on their souls the blood of the massacre of Maiwand, the blood of the massacre of Laing's Nek, the blood of Sir George Colley, the blood of Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr. Burke, and many other true

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