of the Debating Society leads me to the
subject of Politics. I have said in a former chapter that the
Conservative Reform Bill of 1867 was the first political event which
interested me. It was a stirring time all over the world, in France, in
Italy, and in Mexico. There were rebellions and rumours of rebellion.
Monarchical institutions were threatened. Secret Societies were in full
activity. The whole social order seemed to be passing through a crisis,
and I, like the Abbe Sieyes, fell to framing constitutions; my favourite
scheme being a Republic, with a President elected for life, and a
Legislature chosen by universal suffrage. But all these dreams were
dispelled by the realities of my new life at Harrow, and, for a while, I
perforce thought more of Imperial than of Papal Rome, of Greek than of
English Republics. But in the summer of 1868, Mr. Gladstone's first
attack on the Irish Church caused such an excitement as I had never
before known. It was a pitched battle between the two great Parties of
the State, and I was an enthusiastic follower of the Gladstonian
standard. In November 1868 came the General Election which was to decide
the issue. Of course Harrow, like all other schools, was Tory as the sea
is salt. Out of five hundred boys, I can only recall five who showed the
Liberal colour. These were the present Lord Grey; Walter Leaf, the
Homeric Scholar; W. A. Meek, now Recorder of York; M. G. Dauglish, who
edited the "Harrow Register," and myself. On the polling day I received
my "Baptism of Fire," or rather of mud, being rolled over and over in
the attempt to tear my colours from me. The Tory colour was red; the
Liberal was blue; and my mother, chancing to drive through Harrow with
the light blue carriage-wheels which my family have always used, was
playfully but loudly hissed by wearers of the red rosette. Among the
masters, political opinion was divided. Mr. Young, whom I quoted just
now, was a Liberal, and a Tory boy called Freddy Bennet (brother of the
present Lord Tankerville) covered himself with glory by pinning a red
streamer to the back of Young's gown while he was calling "Bill."

In the following year our Politics found a fresh vent through the
establishment of _The Harrovian_. I had dabbled in composition ever
since I was ten, and had printed both prose and verse before I entered
Harrow School. So here was a heaven-sent contributor, and one morning,
in the autumn of 1869, as I was coming out of First