n to posterity distorted images of
those now in the land of the living. This I feel bound to do in
self-defence, as well as in the cause of truth, for to judge by the
biographical sketches of myself which continually appear and reach me
through the medium of a press-cutting agency, caricaturists as
distorters of features are not so proficient as authors as distorters of
facts.

I think it best therefore to begin by giving as briefly as possible an
authentic outline of my early career.

For the benefit of anyone who may not feel particularly interested in
such details, I should mention that the narration of this plain
unvarnished tale extends from this line to page 29.

I was born in Ireland, in the town of Wexford, on March 26th, 1854. I do
not, however, claim, to be an Irishman. My father was a typical
Englishman, hailing from Yorkshire, and not in his appearance only, but
in his tastes and sympathies, he was an unmistakable John Bull. By
profession he was a civil engineer, and he migrated to Ireland some
years before I was born, having been invited to throw some light upon
that "benighted counthry" by designing and superintending the erection
of gas works in various towns and cities.

My mother was Scotch. My great-great-grandfather was a captain in the
Pretender's army at Culloden, and had a son, Angus, who settled in
Aberdeen. When AEneas MacKenzie, my grandfather, was born, his family
moved south and settled in Newcastle-on-Tyne. A local biographer writes
of him: "A man who by dint of perseverance and self-denial acquired more
learning than ninety-nine in a hundred ever got at a university--an
accomplished and most trustworthy writer. The real founder of the
Newcastle Mechanics' Institute, and the leader of the group of
Philosophical Radicals who made not a little stir in the North of
England at the beginning of the last century." He was not only a
benevolent, active member of society and an ardent politician (Joseph
Cowen received his earliest impressions from him--and never forgot his
indebtedness), but the able historian of Northumberland, Durham, and of
Newcastle itself, a town in which he spent his life and his energies. If
I possess any hereditary aptitude for journalism, it is to him I owe it;
whilst to my mother, who at a time when miniature painting was
fashionable, cultivated the natural artistic taste with much success, I
am directly indebted for such artistic faculties as are innate in me.

[Illus