political colleagues. "I had," he said, "to prepare the mind of the country, and to educate-if it be not arrogant to use such a phrase-to educate our party. It is a large party, and requires its attention to be called to questions of this kind with some pressure. I had to prepare the mind of Parliament and the country on this question of reform." All the time, therefore, that Mr. Disraeli was fighting against reform bills, he was really trying to lead his party "with a gentle hand, thither, oh, thither," toward the prin. ciples of popular reform. This then, people said, is what Vivian Grey meant when he declared that for statesmen who would rule," our wisdom must be concealed under folly, and our constancy under caprice." Some members of the party which Mr. Disraeli professed to have thus cleverly educated, were a little scandalized and even shocked at the frank com. posure of his confession; some were offended; it seemed to them that their ingenious instructor had made fools of them. But the general public, as usual, persisted in refusing to take Mr. Disraeli seriously, or to fasten on him any moral responsibility for anything he might say or do. It might have been wrong in another statesmen to put on for years the profession of conservatism in order that he might get more deeply into the confidence of Conservatives and instil into them the principles of Mr. Bright. But in Mr. Disraeli it was of no consequence; that was his way; if he were any. thing but that he would not be Mr. Disraeli; he would not be leader of the House of Commons; he would not be Prime Minister of England.

For to that it soon came; came at last. "At this moment how many a powerful noble wants only wit to be a minister; and what wants Vivian Grey to attain the same end." What Vivian Grey once wanted to attain that end he had long since compassed. Only the opportunity was lately needed to make him Prime Minister; and that opportunity came early in 1868. Lord Derby's health had for some

time been so weakly that he was anxious to get rid of the trouble of office as soon as possible. In February, 1868, he became so ill that his condition excited the gravest anxiety. He rallied indeed, and grew much better; but he took the warning and determined on retiring from office. He tender ed his resignation, and it was accepted by the Queen. It fell to the lot of his son, Lord Stanley, to make the announcement in the House of Commons. There was a general regret felt for the retirement of Lord Derby from a leading place in politics; but as soon as it appeared that his physical condition was not actually hopeless, men's minds turned at once from him to his successor. No one could now

doubt that Mr. Disraeli's time had come. The patient career, the thirty years' war against difficulties were to have the long-desired reward. The Queen sent for Mr. Disraeli, and invited him to assume Lord Derby's vacated place and to form a government. By a curious coincidence the autograph letter containing this invitation was brought from Osborne to the new Prime Minister by General Grey, the man who defeated Mr. Disraeli in his first endeavor to enter the House of Commons. That was the contest for Wycombe in June, 1832. It was a memorable contest in many ways It was the last election under the political conditions which the Reform Bill brought to a close. The Reform Bill had only just been passed when the Wycombe election took place, and had not come into actual operation. The state of the poll is amusing to read of now. Thirty-five voters all told registered their suffrages. Twenty-three voted for Colonel Grey, as he then was; twelve were induced to support Mr. Disraeli. Then Mr. Disraeli retired from the contest, and Colonel Grey was proclaimed the representative of Wycombe by a majority of eleven. Nor had Wycombe exhausted in the contest all its electoral strength. There were, it seemed, two voters more in the borough who would have polled, if it were necessary, on the side of

Colonel Grey. Mr. Disraeli's successful rival in that first struggle for a seat in Parliament was now the bearer of the Queen's invitation to Mr. Disraeli to become Prime-Minister of England. The public in general were well pleased that Mr. Disraeli should reach the object of his ambition. It seemed only the fit return for his long and hard struggle against so many adverse conditions. He had battled with his evil stars, and his triumph over them pleased most of those who had observed the contest. Mr. Frank H. Hill, in hat remarkable book, unrivalled in its way, which bears the modest name of "Political Portraits," speaks of Mr. Disraeli's curiously isolated position in the House of Commons. "He sits like a solitary gladiator waiting the signal for combat." The sentence is admirable as a description. Nothing could be happier as a comparison. For the very reason that Mr. Disraeli had always been like the solitary gladiator the public were all the more pleased when his long, lonely struggle "for his own hand" carried off the prize at last. The public never looked on Mr. Disraeli, up to this period of his career at least, as anything but a brilliant gladiator. The author of "Political Portraits" observes that "Mr. Disraeli's premiership is remarkable chiefly for the fact that he was Prime Minister." This too was true. It is a correct description of that short season of rule which came to Mr. Disraeli on the retirement of Lord Derby. But if Mr. Hill were to take up the subject now, he would probably admit that Mr. Disraeli's second premiership was remarkable for a good many other things besides the fact that he was a second time Prime Minister.

The new Premier made few changes in his Cabinet. His former lieutenant, Lord Cairns, had been for some time one of the Lords-Justices of the Court of Chancery. Mr. Disraeli made him Lord Chancellor. In order to do this he had to undertake the somewhat ungracious task of informing Lord Chelmsford, who sat on the woolsack during Lord

Derby's tenure of office, that his services would no longer be required. Lord Chelmsford's friends were very angry, and a painful controversy began in the newspapers. It was plainly stated by some of the aggrieved that Lord Chelms. ford had been put aside because he had shown himself too firmly independent in his selection of Judges. But there seems no reason to ascribe Mr. Disraeli's action to any other than its obvious and reasonable motive. His ministry was singularly weak in debating talent in the House of Lords. Lord Cairns was one of the best parliamentary debaters of the day; Lord Chelmsford was hardly entitled to be called a parliamentary debater at all. Lord Cairns was a really great lawyer; Lord Chelmsford was only a lawyer of respectable capacity. Lord Chelmsford was at that time nearly seventy-five years old, and Lord Cairns was quarter of a century younger. It is surely not necessary to search for ungenerous or improper motives to explain the act of the new Prime Minister in preferring the one man to the other. Mr. Disraeli merely did his duty. Nothing could justify a minister who had the opportunity and the responsibility of such a choice in deciding to retain Lord Chelmsford rather than to bring in Lord Cairns.

No other change was important. Mr. Ward Hunt, a respectable country gentleman of no great position and of moderate abilities, became Chancellor of the Exchequer in the room of Mr. Disraeli. Mr. Walpole, who had been in the Cabinet for some time without office, retired from the administration altogether. A good deal of work was got through in the session. A bill was introduced to put a stop to the system of public executions, and passed with little difficulty. The only objection raised was urged by those who thought the time had come for abolishing the system of capital punishment altogether. Public executions had long grown to be a scandal to the country. Every voice had been crying out against them. The author of the "Ingolds

by Legends" had made a public execution the subject of a bitter and painful satire. Dickens had denounced the system with generous vehemence; Thackeray had borne stern testimony to its abominations. A public execution in London was a scene to fill an observer with something like a loathing for the whole human race. Through all the long night before the execution the precincts of the prison became a bivouac ground for the ruffianism of the metropolis. The roughs, the harlots, the professional robbers, and the prospective murderers held high festival there. The air reeked with the smell of strong drink, with filthy jokes and oaths and blasphemy. The soul took its flight as if it were a trapeze performer in a circus. The moral effect of the scene, as an example of evil-doers, was about as great as the moral effect of a cock-fight. The demoralizing effect, however, was broad and deep. It may be doubted whether one in ten thousand of those who for mere curiosity came to see an execution did not go away a worse creature than he had As the old-fashioned intramural burial-ground made by its own vapors new corpses to fill it, so the atmosphere of the public execution generated fresh criminals to exhibit on the scaffold. Posterity will probably wonder how the age which would have scouted the idea of any wholesome effect being wrought by public floggings, could have remained so long under the belief that any manner of good could be done by the system of public executions. Since the change made in 1868, the execution takes place within the precincts of the jail; it is witnessed by a few selected persons, usually including representatives of the press, and it is certified by the verdict of a coroner's jury.

come.

Another change of ancient system was made by the mea. sure which took away from the House of Commo is the power of deciding election petitions. The long-established custom was, that an election petition was referred to a committee of the House of Commons, who heard the evidence