ve become a Christian. At any rate, of later years,
his hostility to Christianity seemed to have considerably toned down. Be
that as it may, I always held him to be one of the most honest of our
public men. I had also the pleasure once of sitting next Mr. Labouchere
at a dinner at a friend's. He talked much, smoked more, and was as witty
as Waller, and like him on cold water. Another teetotaler with whom I
came much into contact was the late Sir Benjamin Ward Richardson, a
shortish, stout man to look at, a good public speaker, and warmly devoted
alike to literature and science. Another distinguished man whom I knew
well was Mr. James Hinton, the celebrated aurist and a writer on
religious matters which at one time had great effect. He was the son of
the celebrated Baptist preacher, the Rev. John Howard Hinton, and I was
grieved to learn that he had given up his practice as an aurist in
Saville Row, and had bought an orange estate far away in the Azores,
where he went to die of typhoid fever.

On the whole I am inclined to think I never had a pleasanter man to do
with than Mr. Cobden. "Why don't you commence a movement in favour of
Free Trade in land?" I one day said to him. "Ah," was his reply, "I am
too old for that. I have done my share of work. I must leave that to be
taken up by younger men." And, strange to say, though this has always
seemed to me the great want of the age, the work has been left undone,
and all the nation suffers in consequence. As an illustration of Mr.
Cobden's persuasiveness let me give the following. Once upon a time he
came to Norwich to address an audience of farmers there--in St. Andrew's
Hall, I think. On my asking an old Norfolk farmer what he thought of Mr.
Cobden as a speaker, his reply was, "Why he got such a hold of us that if
he had held up a sheet of white paper on the platform and said it was
black, there was not a farmer in the hall but would have said the same."
Cobden never irritated his opponents. He had a marvellous power of
talking them round. In this respect he was a wonderful contrast to his
friend and colleague, John Bright.

A leading teetotaler with whom I had much to do was the late Mr.
Smithies, founder of _The British Workman_ and publications of a similar
class. At an enormous expense he commenced his illustrated paper, full
of the choicest engravings, and published at a price so as to secure them
a place in the humblest home. For a long while it w