incidents of
a sad occasion was the wreath sent in by their Royal Highnesses with the
following inscription:

_In Memory of Dear Mrs. Gladstone._

"It is but crossing with abated breath
And with set face, a little strip of sea,
To find the loved ones waiting on the shore
More beautiful, more precious than before."

In preparing a national memorial to the eminent Liberal leader the
Prince of Wales accepted the post of President of the General Committee
with the Duke of Westminster as Chairman of the Executive. With Mr.
Cecil Rhodes, he was long upon terms of intimacy and never concealed his
admiration for the great Imperialist's career and objects. There can be
no doubt that he knew much of South African affairs and was instrumental
in the Duke of Fife taking a place on the Directorate of the South
African Chartered Company. The only occasion upon which the Prince ever
withdrew from a prominent Club was his retirement from the Traveller's
because they had black-balled Mr. Rhodes. Not the smallest evidence of
statecraft which the Prince of Wales showed, in a semi-personal way, was
his warm sympathy with the emancipation of the Jews and his belief in
their absorption into the life and interests of England. His presence at
the marriage of Mr. Leopold de Rothschild caused, long since, a
sensation in Jewish circles but it was only the first of many
compliments which the Heir Apparent bestowed upon the "chosen people" up
to the days when one of them became Prime Minister and a daughter of the
House of Rothschild married a future Premier--the Earl of Rosebery. The
late Baron Hirsch, the present Lord Rothschild. Sir Reuben Sassoon and
Sir Moses Montefiore were amongst his personal friends and he made a
thorough study of the position of the Russian Jews--showing them
practical sympathy in various indirect ways. Of course, this partiality
was open to misconstruction and the rumour of indebtedness to Jewish
financial interests was so prevalent at one time that Sir Francis
Knollys had to write a correspondent, who directly asked the question,
an official statement as Private Secretary to the Prince, that the
latter had no debts worth speaking of and could pay every farthing he
owed at a moment's notice.

There is no question, however, that this friendship with a powerful
financial class, ruling great interests in every nation, gave the Prince
of Wales a much enhanced influence abroad. In the same way his ob