d calm by his pleasant and genial manner.
Yet he was every inch a man of business, and even more clear-headed
and far-seeing than the senior partner, his father.
It was he who commenced the railway bookstall business.
Every one knows the familiar look of Smith's bookstalls, with their
energetic clerks, and their armies of pushing newsboys, and perchance
think they were born with the railways and have grown up with them.
But such is not the case. It was not till about 1850 that Mr.
W.H. Smith secured the entire bookstall rights on the London and
North-Western Railway, much against his father's advice. The vast
improvement in the selection of books and the service of papers,
however, induced other companies to desire to have a similar
arrangement, till the chief portion of all the English railways came
to be girdled by Smith's bookstalls.
From this date the business advanced with giant strides. Managers and
clerks had to be engaged, the latter in large numbers. Here the genius
of Smith as a judge of character was abundantly shown. He came to a
determination almost at a glance, and seldom erred in his judgment.
In 1868 he was returned to Parliament, and in 1874 Mr. Disraeli
selected him for a place in his Ministry. A year later he was made
First Lord of the Admiralty. How serviceable he had been in the former
post may be judged by the remark made by Sir Stafford Northcote when
he lost Smith's assistance on his promotion to the higher position: "I
am troubled to know what to do without my right hand. I don't think he
made a slip in the whole three years."
Writing to his wife when he was appointed First Lord of the Admiralty,
Mr. Smith says: "My patent has come to-day, and I have taken my
seat at the Board, who address me as 'Sir' in every sentence. It is
strange, and makes me shy at first; and I have to do what I hardly
like--to send for them, not to go to them; but I am told they expect
me, as their chief, to require respect."
He often wrote to his wife whilst the debates were going on in the
House of Commons. "Here I am, sitting listening to Arthur Balfour, who
is answering Mr. J. Morley," he writes; "and I have ears for him and
thoughts for my dear ones at home."
"Remember me in your prayers" is a request he often makes to his wife
and children. In 1886 the Rt. Hon. W. H. Smith became leader of the
House of Commons, and had thus reached one of the highest positions
any Englishman can occupy. "Old Moral
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