otmen. Having been turned out of Anderton's Hotel, the Society, on the
application of Olivier, was accepted solemnly at Willis's, probably
because the managers regarded the mere fact of our venturing to approach
them as a certificate of high rank in the world of learned societies.

One meeting of this period is perhaps worthy of record. On 16th March,
1888, Mr. R.B. Haldane, M.P., subsequently Secretary of State for War
and Lord Chancellor, addressed the Society on "Radical Remedies for
Economic Evils." In the pages of the "Radical," Vol. II, No. 8, for
March, 1888, can be found a vivid contemporary account of the
proceedings from the pen of Mr. George Standring, entitled "Butchered to
Make a Fabian Holiday." After describing the criticism of the lecture by
Sidney Webb, Mrs. Besant, and Bernard Shaw the report proceeds:--

"The massacre was concluded by two other members of the Society and then
the chairman called on Mr. Haldane to reply. Hideous mockery! The
chairman knew that Haldane was _dead_! He had seen him torn and tossed
and trampled under foot. Perhaps he expected the ghost of the M.P. to
rise and conclude the debate with frightful jabberings of fleshless
jaws and gestures of bony hands. Indeed I heard a rustling of papers as
if one gathered his notes for a speech; but I felt unable to face the
grisly horror of a phantom replying to his assassins; so I fled."

It should be added that Mr. Standring did net become a member of the
Society until five years later.

By the summer of 1888 the leaders of the Society realised that they had
a message for the world, and they decided that the autumn should be
devoted to a connected series of lectures on the "Basis and Prospects of
Socialism" which should subsequently be published.

There is no evidence, however, that the Essayists supposed that they
were about to make an epoch in the history of Socialism. The meetings in
the summer had been occupied with lectures by Professor D.G. Ritchie on
the "Evolution of Society," subsequently published as his well-known
volume "Darwinism and Politics." Walter Crane on "The Prospects of Art
under Socialism," Graham Wallas on "The Co-operative Movement," and Miss
Clementina Black on "Female Labour." At the last-named meeting, on June
15th, a resolution was moved by H.H. Champion and seconded by Herbert
Burrows (neither of them members) calling on the public to boycott
Bryant and May's matches on account of the low wages paid. This m