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DISTRESS IN THE BLACK COUNTRY.

Acting as Special Artist for The Illustrated London News.

The Light Brigade—Miss Thompson (Lady Butler)—Slumming—The Boat Race—Realism—A Phantasmagoria—Orlando and the Caitiff—Fancy Dress Balls—Lewis Wingfield—Cinderella—A Model—All Night Sitting—An Impromptu Easel—"Where there's a Will there's a Way"—The American Sunday Papers—I am Deaf—The Grill—The World's Fair—Exaggeration—Personally Conducted—The Charnel House—10, Downing Street—I attend a Cabinet Council—An Illustration by Mr. Labouchere—The Great Lincolnshire Trial—Praying without Prejudice

AT THE OXFORD AND CAMBRIDGE BOAT RACE. (Reduction of Large Drawing.)

Sir William Russell and I were called upon at a banquet in the City to respond to the toast of the Press. Sir William made one of his characteristic, graceful little speeches, reminiscential and modest. When I rose I was for a moment also reminiscential—but not modest. "My Lord Mayor, Sheriffs, and Masters of this Worshipful Company—I appreciate the appropriateness in coupling my name with that of Sir William Russell, for both of us have made a noise in the world at the same time—Dr. Russell with his first war letters to the Times, and I in my cradle, for I came into this troubled world while others in arms were making a noise in the Crimea."

AS SPECIAL AT THE BALACLAVA CELEBRATION.

Naturally for this reason I have always taken an interest in the doings of that time; so it was quite con amore that I acted as "special" at the first Balaclava Celebration Banquet (1875), twenty years after "Billy" Russell's first war letters and my first birthday.

The roll-call on the occasion was funny, seeing that it was that of the "Light Brigade"—some were "light" and many were heavy—one I recollect was about eighteen stone. The banquet was held in the Alexandra Palace, Muswell Hill. The visitors, except the military—past or present—were shamefully treated. We had to stand all the time behind the chairs and wearily watch a scene not altogether elevating to lookers-on. We were not allowed a chair to sit on, nor any refreshment of any kind—not even if we paid for it; and I well recollect how hungry I was when I returned to my studio after a tedious journey at 1 in the morning, having had nothing to eat since 1 of the previous day. Such Red Tape was, I suppose, to illustrate the disgraceful arrangements of the commissariat in the Crimea! I was standing close to Miss Thompson (Lady Butler), who had just become famous by her picture "The Roll Call." She was making notes, and possibly intended painting a sequel to her celebrated picture. She was exhausted and tired, and no doubt too disgusted by such ungallant conduct on the part of the organisers of the banquet to touch the subject. Had she painted this particular roll-call I fear many of the figures would have had to be drawn out of the perpendicular.

Twenty years before one of the heroes was, possibly, a better and a wiser man, and tackled the "Rooshins" with greater dexterity than he displayed on this occasion in managing a jelly. He had waiters to right of him, waiters to left of him, and waiters behind him, but that jelly defeated him, although he charged it with fork, spoon, and finally with fingers.

From a very early age it was naturally my ambition to be introduced to Mr. Punch, but this was not to be just yet, and the first London paper for which I drew regularly was the Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News, which was started soon after I arrived in London. I continued to work for it until it was bought by the proprietor of the Illustrated London News, when I became a large contributor to that leading illustrated paper.

Most of my work for the Illustrated London News consisted of single and double pages of character sketches, in which Eton and Harrow cricket matches, Oxford and Cambridge boat races, tennis meetings, the Lawn at Goodwood, and many other scenes of English life were treated pictorially; but I also acted sometimes in the capacity of a special correspondent, and this duty sometimes took me into places far from pleasant.

DISTRESS IN THE NORTH.

Page (reduction), "Illustrated London News." Republished by permission of the proprietors.

On my twenty-fourth Christmas, the year after I was married, I recollect having to start off upon such a mission to the North of England, where, owing to strikes and labour disputes, most distressing scenes were taking place. Throwing myself into the work, I thoroughly ferreted out the distress which prevailed, pursuing my investigations into the very garrets of the poor starving creatures whose privacy I thus disturbed at the entreaty and under the escort of the district visitors and other benevolent people, whilst the criminal classes also came in for a share of my observation, which in this case was conducted under the sheltering wing of a detective.

I cannot, however, say that my energy met with its due reward, for such was the realism with which I had treated the subject allotted to me that the editor and proprietors of the Illustrated London News were reluctant to shock the susceptibilities of their readers by presenting them with such scenes, and I had to substitute for them sketches of soup kitchens, committee meetings and refuges. That the editorial decision was not a sound one was amply proved a few years later, when during a somewhat similar crisis Mr. G. R. Sims and the late Mr. Fred Barnard published work of a similar breadth and boldness with signal effect.

Visiting slums, seeing death from want and misery on all sides, is certainly not the most pleasant way of spending the festive season. In company with detectives, clergymen, or self-sacrificing district visitors, you may swallow the pill with the silver on; but try it single-handed, and it is a very different affair. I was taken for some demon rent-collector prowling about, and was peered at through broken windows and doors, and received with language warm enough to thaw the icicles. The sketches I made during the weeks I spent in the haunts of want and misery would have made a startling volume, but time and money were thrown away, and only the perfunctory pictures were published. The public have no idea, or seldom think, of the great trouble and expense incurred in faithfully depicting everyday scenes. Still, it is not possible for a "special" even to see everything, or to be in two places simultaneously; and consequently, in ordinary pictorial representations, dummy figures are frequently looked upon as true portraits. One boat race, for example, is very much like another. Some years ago I executed a panoramic series of sketches of the University Race from start to finish, and as they were urgently wanted, the drawings had to be sent in the same day. Early in the morning, before the break of fast, I found myself at Putney, rowing up to Mortlake, taking notes of the different points on the way—local colour through a fog. Getting home before the Londoners started for the scene, I was at work, and the drawings—minus the boats—were sent in shortly after the news of the race. The figures were imaginary and unimportant, but one correspondent wrote to point out the exact spot where he stood, and complained of my leaving out the black band on his white hat, and placing him too near a pretty girl, adding that his wife, who had not been present, had recognised his portrait.

Yes, I must confess, one has often to draw upon the imagination even in serious "realism," Some years ago I went with a colleague of the pen to illustrate and describe the dreadful scenes which were said to take place in St. James's Park, where the poor people were seen to sleep all night on the seats. We arrived about 2 a.m. It was a beautiful moonlight night, but though we walked up and down for hours not a soul came in sight. My companion said, "It's a bad business; we cannot do anything with this." I replied, "We must not go away without something to show; now if you will lie down I will make a sketch of you, and then I will lie down and you can describe me."

One of the most "uncanny" experiences I ever had as a "special" I find graphically described by the late Hon. Lewis Wingfield, who accompanied me on the strange mission.

REALISM!

"Winter without. Snow. A sea of billows drifting across the sky, glittering, frosted—a symphony in metals—silver, aluminium, lead—rendered buoyant for the nonce, ethereal—as though the world were really gone Christmas mad, and, having a sudden attack of topsy-turvydom in its inside, had taken to showering its treasures about the firmament, instead of keeping them snugly put away in mines below ground. A sheet of snow, and bitter white rain driving still. A huge building looming black, its many eyes staring into the dark—lidless, bilious, vacant. This is a hospital. Or is it a factory, disguised with a veneer of the Puginesque? Or an æsthetic barrack? Or an artistic workhouse? Visible yet, under falling snow which has not had time to cover them, are flower-beds, shrub-plots, meandering walks. Too genteel and ambitious for the most æsthetic of workhouses or advanced of hospitals, we wonder what the building is; and our wonder is not decreased by seeing a postern opened in a huge black wall, from which a handful of conspirators creep silently. We rub our eyes. Are we dreaming? Is this, or is it not, the age of scientific marvels, levelling of castes, rampant communism, murder, agrarian outrage, sudden massacre?—the olla podrida which we are pleased to denominate enlightenment? That first black figure is James the Second. Heavens! The Jacobites live yet, and will join, doubtless, with the Fenians and Mr. Bradlaugh, and a posse comitatus of iconoclasts, to upset the reign of order, and add a thorn to the chaplet of our hard-run Premier. James the Second. Not a doubt of it. There he is—periwig, black velvet, and bugles. Where, oh where, is the Great Seal, with which he played ducks and drakes in the Thames? Yet no. This is no Jacobite plot, for His Majesty is followed by no troop of partisans on tiptoe in hose and doublet. He is not seeking to win his own again. A woodman trudges behind—we recognise him, for his name's "Orlando"—(Wingfield himself, in a beautiful costume, which he had made two years previously when playing the part of Orlando in a production of "As You Like It" in Manchester, the Calvert Memorial performance; Miss Helen Faucit (Lady Martin), Rosalind; Herman Merivale, Touchstone; Tom Taylor, Adam; and other well-known celebrities assisting). Then he describes me: "A muffled creature of sinister aspect. Short, auburn-locked, extinguished by a portentous hat, tripping and stumbling over a cloak, or robe, in whose dragging folds he conceals his identity as well as his power of volition, a weird and gruesome phantom. What—oh what—is this hovering ghost? He must be just defunct, for the purgatorial garments fit him not, he stumbles at every step, and when he trips an underdress is unveiled that's like a City waiter's. What is he—the arch conspirator—doing himself? He starts, tries to conceal a book, but we snatch it from him. Sketches! lots of sketches! caricatures, low and vulgar portraits of ourselves! 'What are you?' we scream, 'and why this orgy? Speak, caitiff, or for ever hold your peace!'

"THE CAITIFF" AND ORLANDO.

"Perceiving that we are in earnest and not to be trifled with, and glare with forbidding mien, the caitiff speaks in trembling accents. 'If you please,' he says, 'I'm the artist from the great illustrated journal; I'm drawing pictures of the lunatics. My disguise is beyond my own control, and trips me up, but I'm told it's becoming.' 'Lunatics!' we echo.

"'Yes,' the caitiff murmurs. 'This is the annual fancy dress ball at Brookwood Asylum. You and I and the doctors and attendants are the only sane people in the place. By-and-by the country gentry will be admitted, and then the tangle will be hopeless, for even in everyday life it's impossible to know who's mad and who isn't. How much more here?'

"We left the trembling caitiff to his secret sketching, and the despondency produced by his appearance. He was sane, was he? Then in him were we revenged on human nature, for sure never was mortal more oppressed by his gear and his surroundings."

The fact is that my editor, in sending his "young man," omitted to say that the invitation was crossed with "fancy dress only," so I arrived in ordinary war-paint. The Doctor was horrified. "This will never do. My patients will resent it. You must be in fancy dress." All my host could find was a seedy red curtain and an old cocked hat (had it been a nightcap I should have been complete as Caudle). I wrapped this martial cloak around me, and soon found myself in the most extraordinary scene, so graphically described by Wingfield. He was not alone in his scorn for me. The "Duke of York" had a great contempt for my appearance, but when introduced to him as His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, he unbent, waved his bauble, and commanded me to be seated. The visitors eyed me suspiciously all the evening, and on my entering the supper-room, accompanied by the Doctor, they were seized with the idea that I must be a very dangerous case, and readily made room—in fact, made off. One of the poor patients was an artist, and showed me his sketch-book, the work of many, many months—a number of drawings in colour, stuck one on top of the other, resembling an elongated concertina, so that only the corners of the pages could be seen. The patients wore costumes designed and made by themselves, in marked contrast to their stylish keepers. Among the guests the county families were well represented, and garrison officers from a neighbouring depôt formed a motley group which a looker-on, viewing the scene as in a kaleidoscope, would laugh at. One turn, and the next moment some incident might occur which an imaginative brain could easily work into a romance too touching to relate.

For some years I had quite a run of fancy dress balls, a craze at that time, acting as special artist for various periodicals, the Illustrated London News in particular. The ball above recorded was unique, but there is very little variety in such gatherings, where variety is the one thing aimed at, thus showing the limit of our English artistic invention. The ingredients of a ball of three hundred, say, would be as follows—Thirty Marie Stuarts, ten Marguerites, twenty-eight Fausts, fifty Flower Girls, nine Portias, three Clowns, sixteen Matadores, thirty Sailors, twenty-five Ophelias, twenty-five Desdemonas, the remainder uniforms and nondescripts. Of course any popular figure, picture or play of the moment will be represented. When the relief of Mafeking took place, the number of Baden-Powells, tall, short, young, old, thin and stout, in the various fancy balls and bazaars appearing will be, as newspaper leader-writers say, "a fact fresh in the mind of the reader." Some years ago a portrait of the "missing Gainsborough," a picture of the Duchess of Devonshire, which mysteriously vanished from Agnew's gallery in Bond Street, was represented in dozens at the fancy balls of the period, and the Gilbert-Sullivan opera "Patience," supplied many a costume. My brother "special" on this occasion—Lewis Wingfield—was a Crichton of eccentricity. The son of an Irish peer, an officer in the Guards, he dressed as a ballet-girl and danced on the stage; was a journalist and wrote for Charles Dickens when that great novelist edited Household Words. Wingfield never did anything by halves, so in writing a series of articles for Dickens on the casual wards of London he personated a street photographer (having delicate hands he could not pretend to be a labourer), and wrote his experiences of the dreadful state of affairs existing in those days under the rule of Bumbledom. The last he sought relief at was situated close to Golden Square. Here he was very harshly treated, and when he left he rapidly changed into his usual clothes, drove up to the establishment as one of the life patrons (all his family had for years supported the charity), and had the satisfaction of dismissing the overbearing overseer, to the wretch's chagrin. Wingfield related this incident with great glee.

AT A FANCY DRESS BALL.

Anxious to find out the amount niggers made on the Derby Day, he decided to go as a burnt-cork nigger himself; but it is impossible to do this unless you are of that ilk, for like the business of the beggars and street performers, everything is properly organised; there is a proper system and superintendent to arrange matters. After some difficulty he managed to get introduced as the genuine article, and at 4 in the morning had to stand with the other Ethiopian minstrels at "Poverty Junction," between Waterloo Bridge and Waterloo Station, while lots were drawn for positions on the course. As luck would have it, Wingfield drew a pitch opposite the Grand Stand, where at least he would be among his own acquaintances. All the niggers had to walk to Epsom, unless it happened some friendly carter could be induced to offer a seat. Had four-in-hands come along Wingfield might have been saved a walk, but costers were to him unknown. By lunch-time he was heartily sick of his new life. However, he was determined to carry it through. In the evening, after his long, hot day's work, he found he had to wait for the policeman's train. After the half-million people had returned to London, he was allowed to crawl into a carriage, and being thoroughly tired he fell asleep in a corner of the compartment. But the police wanted some entertainment, and waking him up, said:

"Now then, darky, tune up! we can pay you as well as the toffs; let's have a song!" They had a concert all the way, Wingfield singing the solos. The hat was sent round and a collection made, and to the bitter end Wingfield had to bang away at his banjo and squeak with what little voice he had left. This nearly finished him. Arriving at Victoria, he hailed a hansom. One driver after another eyed him scornfully and passed on. He then for the first time realised that it is not a customary thing for an itinerant nigger to drive about London in hansoms, even on Derby Day. So he dragged himself wearily along the streets until he happened to meet an intimate friend. To him he explained matters, and his friend called a hansom for him and paid the driver as well before he would take up his dusky fare. He thought the fact of his driving a street nigger a great joke, and made merry over his passenger as he passed the other drivers. But he was very much astonished when he drove up in front of quite an imposing dwelling and saw the door opened by a footman as the nigger toiled up the steps.

LEWIS WINGFIELD AS

A STREET NIGGER HOME

FROM THE DERBY.

As an artist Wingfield was ambitious. Finding, as he told me, that he could never be a great artist, he preferred not to be one at all. On his walls were large classic paintings, not likely ever to find their way to the walls of anyone else. But he tried his hand at popular art as well. A scene in a circus, for instance, was one subject. A pretty little child was engaged to sit in his studio, but as that day he was going to Hengler's Circus to paint the background he, to the delight of the child, took her with him. The little girl played about in the ring, and was noticed by Mr. Hengler, who asked her if she would like to be dressed up and play in the same ring at night. This led to the child becoming a professional. She enchanted everyone as Cinderella. Her name was Connie Gilchrist. I fell in love with her myself when I was in my teens and first saw her as Cinderella. Afterwards when I came to London I was as ignorant as a Lord Chief Justice as to who Connie Gilchrist was; but I recollect a model sitting to me recommending my writing to her younger sister for some figures she thought her sister would suit. The day was fixed, but by the morning's post I received a letter from the young lady to say that Mr. Hollingshead, of the Gaiety Theatre, had sent for her, and she could not sit to me. She was Connie Gilchrist, and I believe this was the last engagement she had accepted as a professional model.

Telegram from the editor of the Illustrated London News:—"Election, Liverpool, see to it at once." So I did. On arriving in the evening, I rushed off to a "ward meeting," To my surprise the artist of a rival paper sat down beside me. He did not frighten me away, but candidly confessed that he had seen a private telegram of mine saying I was starting, and his editor packed him off by the same train. Ha! I must be equal to him! I sat up all night and drew a page on wood, ready for engraving, and sent it off by the first train in the morning. It was in the press before my rival's rough notes left Liverpool. One would hardly think, to see candles stuck in my boots, that the hotel was the Old Adelphi. I trust the "special" of the future will find the electric light, or a better supply of bedroom candlesticks. All day again sketching, and all night hard at work, burning the midnight oil (I was nearly writing boots). A slice of luck kept me awake in the early morning. A knock at my door, and to my surprise a friend walked in who had come down by a night train for a "daily" and seeing my name in the visitors' book had looked me up, thinking I could give him some "tips." "All right," I said; "a bargain: you sit for me and I'll talk. Here, stand like this"—the Liberal candidate. "Capital! Now round like this"—the Conservative. "Drawn from life! And after another day of this kind of thing, I reached home without having had an hour's sleep. Oh! a "special's" life is not a happy one.

AN ALL-NIGHT SITTING.

Great political excitement, there is no doubt, turns men's heads. Once I recollect finding a most dignified provincial politician in this state, and necessity compelled me to turn him into a sketching-stool. Mr. Gladstone was speaking at Bingley Hall, Birmingham, and although close to him on the platform, I could not, being only five feet two, see over the heads of others when all stood to cheer. I mentioned this fact to my neighbour. "Oh, you must not miss this scene!" he said, and quickly, without ceremony, he had me on his back, his bald head serving as an easel. It has struck me since that had this old gentleman, a big man in his native town, and still bigger in his own estimation, seen himself as others saw him at that moment, the probability is that he would not have felt anything like so kindly to me as I did to him.

SKETCHES AT THE LIVERPOOL ELECTION: A WARD MEETING.—SEE PAGE 138.

Reduction of Page Design. Brush Drawing on wood, made after election meeting at night, and despatched to London by early morning train. See the Confessions of a Special Artist.

Another instance of a special artist having to depend upon his wits was when I found myself at a big central manufacturing town, sent down in a hurry from London by the Illustrated London News to illustrate a most important election meeting—an election upon which the fate of the Government of the day depended. When I arrived the mills had been closed, crowds were in the streets, and it would have been a simple matter to have got into Mafeking compared with getting into the hall in which the meeting was at the time being held.

MY EASEL. DRAWING MR.

GLADSTONE AT A PUBLIC MEETING.

If there is one thing I dislike more than another it is a crowd, particularly an electioneering crowd. Political fever is a bad malady, even when one is impervious to it, if he has to fight his way through an infected mob. Quickly slipping round to the principal hotel, and finding there the carriages engaged for the celebrities of the meeting, I got into one and was driven rapidly up to the hall, cheered by the mob, who doubtless looked upon me as some active politician. Had I put my head out of the window and promised them any absurdity, I believe they would have chosen me their member on the spot. Arriving at the hall, I was received by the tipstaffs, who, probably not catching my name distinctly, thought as the hotel people had done, that I was sent down in some official capacity, and politely ushered me to the platform, where I was given a seat in the front row.

Ah, you little know the difficulties of the poor artist in running his subjects to earth. When in New York I was specially engaged by the New York Herald to contribute a series of studies of the leading public men. These were to appear in the Sunday edition.

Those Sunday papers! What gluttons for reading the Americans are! The first Sabbath morning I was in the States I telephoned in an off-hand sort of way from my bedroom for "some Sunday papers." I went on dressing, and somehow forgot my order, but on leaving, or rather attempting to leave, my room afterwards, I found to my astonishment the doorway completely blocked with newspapers to the quantity of several tons. I rang my bell vigorously. The attendant arrived, and seemed considerably amused at my look of consternation. He explained to me that these were five of the Sunday papers, and added apologetically that they were all he could get at present. If I had stayed to read through that pile I should be in the States now.

THE AMERICAN SUNDAY PAPERS.

The first "subject" I was requested to caricature was the celebrated sensational preacher, Dr. Parkhurst. When I arrived at his church it was crowded to the doors, and I could not get near him. A churchwarden told me to sit down where I was, but I put my hand to my ear and shook my head, as much as to say "I do not hear you." Then one churchwarden said to the other churchwarden, "This man is deaf, he doesn't hear; I was telling him to sit down—"

"Pardon me, but are you speaking?" I whispered. "I regret to say that I am very deaf. I came specially from London to hear your great preacher, and I should not like to return without gratifying this one desire I have."

"Say, is your wife here to-day?" asked one churchwarden of the other.

"No, she is sick at home."

"Could not you squeeze this funny little Britisher into your pew?"

"Guess I could."

So they beckoned to me to follow them, and I was ushered up the aisle and sat under the Doctor. The result of that little manœuvre was that I did my work in peace, although sadly troubled to see his face in consequence of the church being dark and the reading lamp hiding portion of it.

In America introductions are superfluous, so knowing Dr. Parkhurst came over in the Germanic, the same ship that I travelled in some months later, I walked boldly after the service into his room, shook him by the hand, and mentioned in a familiar way the officers of the ship, the storm, and other matters connected with his journey, and in that way had the chance of ten minutes' chat and a closer observation of his facial expression.

It may happen, even when everything is carefully prepared to make the visit of a special artist easy and comfortable, that work may be difficult to accomplish. I must go to the United States for an illustration of what I mean.

Some years ago I met Max O'Rell at a London club, and was introduced by him to a very English-looking gentleman with an American accent, who immediately said:

"Glad to meet you, Mr. Furniss. When you come over to the States we must put you on the grill!"

What did he mean? I looked at Max. Max turned pale, and seemed for a moment to lose his self-possession, then hurriedly whispered in my ear:

"Jolly good fellow—very witty—president of strange club in America where they chaff their guests—see my last book!"

I recollected reading about a club that goes in for roasting as well as toasting its guests, and replied:

"Strange!" I said. "I always thought the Americans were in advance of the English; yet here in my country we do not put the Furniss on the grill, but the grill on the furnace!"

Max laughed and looked relieved, and said:

"You'll do—they'll let you off easy. A Frenchman can't stand chaff, so I sat down."

He had stood the fire of the enemy upon the field of battle, but he couldn't stand the fusillade of wit from the Americans at their dinner table.

The stranger was no other than Major Moses P. Handy, afterwards "Chief of Department of Publicity and Promotion at the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago;" so when I found myself in the "Windy City" as an unattached "special" from the Old World to the New "World's Fair," I called at Rand-McNally Buildings, not to be put on the grill, but to be put in possession of some facts concerning that great "Exposition."

MAJOR HANDY.

Sometimes there is a great deal in a name. For instance, the late Major Handy at once indicated the man—handy, always ready with tongue, hands and legs. He handed me round the city, told me of its wonders, and sent me off enraptured to the "Exposition." Here I was met by one of the staff, and escorted all over the skeleton of what eventually proved to be the most wonderful "Exposition," Exhibition, World's Fair, or whatever you like to call it, that the New World had ever seen.

The gentleman in possession who met me and acted as my guide was a clean-cut featured, smooth-faced, typical American, "full of wise saws and modern instances" and—tobacco juice. He had a merry wit, and his running commentary would have been invaluable "copy" to America's pet humourist, Bill Nye.

I had a pencil in the pocket in one side of my coat, and a note-book in the pocket in the other side, but the carriage in which I was driven about rushed on so over the rough ground and "corduroy roads" and hills and chasms, that I found it a matter of utter impossibility to get the pencil and the book out together, and, therefore, the facts I give about the "Exposition" may want verification, for my worthy guide kept firing them into me with the rapidity of a Maxim or a Hotchkiss.

THE WORLD'S FAIR, CHICAGO. A "SPECIAL'S" VISIT.

"Now here is the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building. Guess the largest building ever erected—1,641,223 feet long, 17,894 feet high—" Down goes the trap on one side, plunging into some excavation, like a double-harnessed Roman chariot. However, we scrambled up again, but I had lost the important figure of the width of the building. Now I don't for a moment wish to imply that my guide was exaggerating, but this rather reminds me of a story told of an American visiting England, and his host there one day remarked to him:

"My dear fellow, we are delighted with you here—in fact, you are quite a favourite; but you will excuse me if I tell you that you possess one failing pretty general with your countrymen—you do exaggerate so!"

"Guess I kean't help it, but if you'll just kindly give me a kick under the table when I'm going too far I'll pull up sharp!"

With this agreement they went out to dinner that evening, and among other topics the conversation turned upon conservatories. Captain de Vere said that he had a conservatory 200 feet long, but that the Duke of Orchid had one nearly 1,000 feet long. The American here struck in with:

"I reckon, gentlemen, you're talking about conservatories. Now there's a friend of mine in Amurrca, a private gentleman, who has a conservatory 5,000 feet long, 3,000 feet high, and" (kick)—"oh!—2 feet wide!"

But had I heard the figures representing the width of the building, I don't suppose they would have been in the same absurd proportion as this, for not all the shin-kicking in the world would have deterred my entertaining and conversational conductor.

"You must assemble together in your mind's eye all the mighty structures already existing in the world to form any idea of the magnitude of this tremenjious edifice before you. It is sixteen times as large as St. Peter's Cathedral at Rome, Westminster Abbey and St. Paul's Cathedral would nestle together in its ventilating shaft, and the whole of the armies of Europe could sit down comfortably to dinner in the central hall. The Tower of London would be lost under one of the staircases, and fifty Cleopatra's Needles stuck one on top of the other would not scratch the roof. The building cost fifty million six hundred and eighty-four thousand two hundred dollars seventy-five cents, and——" On dashed the horses in their wild career.

Down we went, I thought into the bed of Lake Michigan, but in an instant we were up again, my hat in one direction and my stick in another, and I was well shaken before being taken to the next building.

"Say, Mr. Furniss, the roads are not complete yet, but you mustn't mind these little ups and downs. Guess these horses would pull through anything—brought 'em right away from the fire-engine shed, considerable fresh!"

At this moment a train came puffing along laden with masses of ironwork for the central building. The horses shied at the smoky monster, turned a somersault (at least, so it seemed to me), and we nearly took a header into the lake again; but the charioteer managed to turn them just in time, and the fiery fire-engine steeds snorted past their iron brother, eclipsing even his noise and steam.

"ON DASHED THE HORSES IN THEIR WILD CAREER."

I now began to feel thoroughly happy, but I kept a watchful eye on those gee-gees, and as we skipped over impromptu bridges, whizzed round the corners of newly-made piles, and bumped over incomplete parapets, I quite enjoyed myself; but somehow or other I couldn't quite manage to catch all the marvellous details respecting the buildings we were passing. I was qualifying myself for the Volunteer Fire Brigade. But our steeds were reined in for a moment while my guide pointed out to me the Dairy Building.

"I reckon, sir," he said, "that dairy will be an eye-opener. It'll be sooperb, and I guess it won't be long after the opening of the show that they'll be turning out gold-edged butter!"

Off we go again, over mounds and down dykes, jumping rocks and shooting rapids, and I am certain that had our conveyance been a milk-cart, butter, gold-edged or otherwise, would have been produced pretty soon. We pull up with a jerk opposite the Agricultural Building.

"The building is 5,000 by 8,000 feet, design bold and heroic. On each corner and from the centre of the building are reared pavilions."

"Indeed!" I said. "Are they reared by incubators, or upon some special soil from the fertile tracts of the Far West?"

My guide did not evidently deem my question worthy an answer, and continued:

"Surmounted by a mammoth glass dome 460 feet high, constructed on purpose to accommodate the giant Pennsylvania pumpkin we're having raised specially for the Exposition. That pumpkin will be hollowed out, and 600 people will be able to sit down together at once in its interior."

"Now we'll go to the Transportation Building," said my indefatigable conductor to the driver.

"Bless me!" I thought; "is this a convict prison? Are we to have visitors from Sing Sing, and am I to see some of my friends from Portland and Dartmoor? Will there be a model of the Bastille, and a contingent of escaped refugees from the mines of Siberia? Or is the building an enormous concern for the transport of visitors to and from the Exposition?"

"Say, Mr. Furniss, this is the most original conception in the whole Exposition. You'll see contrasted here every mode of transport, and a complete train, with a display of locomotives never before attempted, will be quite stupendous! To quote the guidebook: 'There will be at least 100 engines exhibited, and placed so as to face each other,' and every day we will have a steam tournament. Guess it will be a case of the survival of the fittest of the engines when they meet! Visitors fond of railway accidents can be despatched with a completeness only to be witnessed in the stock-yards of this great city!"

This ghastly suggestion had the effect of making me feel more comfortable than ever.

We had been some hours driving through this wonderful skeleton city. The last dying rays of the setting sun, sinking behind the sweeping prairies of the far, far West, lit up the horizon with a blood-red glow, and, as the shades of evening began to descend and envelop the embryo Exposition, the driver turned the horses' heads whence we had come—towards the sunset.

The animals snorted, their nostrils inflated, their eyes glistened, and, with tails erect, they tore off straight ahead at a tremendous rate. They couldn't understand why they had been driven aimlessly about all this time; but now they saw the glare, as they thought, of the fire—the glare they had been accustomed to regard as the beacon to guide them to their goal—a goal which had to be reached with lightning speed.

It seemed as if we were flying through a beautiful place destroyed by the ravages of fire, for in the dim evening light the outlined houses gave one the impression that they formed a city dead, not a city newly-born.

Away to the Wild West of the Exposition we flew, and were eventually pulled up outside of one of the larger and more complete buildings. My faculties had been about all shaken out of me by this time, and I was so bewildered by the chaos of figures in my brain—all that were left of the volumes that had been poured into my ears—that I had to be all but lifted out of the fire-engine trap by my good guide. He said, in an undertone:

"Now I'm going to show you something we keep a profound secret."

Making a supreme effort, I dispersed temporarily the armies of figures conflicting in my unfortunate head, and became once more a rational being, so as to appreciate fully this visual tit-bit reserved to the last. We entered the structure. What was it? A mortuary, a dissecting-chamber, or a pantomime property-room? Numbers of ghost-like beings with bared arms streaming with an opaque-white liquid appeared to be engaged in some ghoulish machinations. Mutilated figures of gigantic creatures lay strewn about in reckless confusion. It seemed as if pigmies were butchering giants; and in the dim, weird light among these uncanny surroundings my jumbled imagination whispered to me that, after all, this stupendous Exhibition I had just rushed through could not possibly be the work of the insignificant little men who swarmed all over the colossal buildings in such ridiculously absurd proportion to their pretended handiwork.

THE CHARNEL-HOUSE, CHICAGO'S WORLD FAIR.

No, these giants had performed this herculean undertaking, and were now being cut up—the reward of many who attempt such ambitious tasks. In reality, though, this charnel-house was the sculptors' studio, in which were modelled the gigantic figures which were to be placed on the buildings and about the grounds.

Now were I to design a model for a statue to be placed in the Exposition, it would certainly be one of my excellent and entertaining companion, who proved himself a model conductor, a model of an American gentleman, and one who is justly proud, as all Americans must be, of the greatness and thoroughness of the most splendid and most interesting Exhibition ever recorded in the annals of their great country.

One day I slipped up to 10, Downing Street, to make a note of that very ordinary, albeit mystical, abode of English Premiers and officials. The eagle eye of the policeman was upon me, and he was soon at my side subjecting me to minute examination. My explanation satisfied him that the only lead I had about me was encased in wood for the purpose of drawing, and that the substance in my hand was not dynamite, but innocent indiarubber, for wiping out people and places only of my own creation. "Ah, sir, there ain't much to see there, unless the 'all porter's a-lookin' out of the winder. But you ought ter be 'ere in the mornin' and see the Premier a-shavin' of 'imself, with a piece of old lookin'-glass stuck up on the winder ter see 'imself in—just wot the likes of us would do!"

So I, as a "special," was allowed to make a sketch of the outside of the famous No. 10. Not long afterwards I happened to be standing in the same place with a number of journalists and a crowd of the public when a political crisis drew all attention to the Cabinet, the members of which were arriving at intervals, recognised and cheered by the curious. As the door opened to allow one of the members of the Cabinet to enter, a certain official noticed me standing on the opposite side of the street. To my surprise he beckoned to me, and said, "I have been waiting to see you, Mr. Furniss, for a long time. I have some sketches in the house here I want you to see whenever you can honour me with a visit."

"No time like the present moment," I said.

Before the official realised that the present moment was a dangerous one for the admittance of strangers I was taken into the house. While examining the works of art in the official's private room a knock came to the door, which necessitated his leaving me. The moment of the "special" had arrived—now or never for a Cabinet Council! I was down the passage, and in a few minutes stood in the presence of the Cabinet, when Mr. Gladstone, the Premier, was addressing Lord Granville and the others, who were seated, and just as the Duke of Devonshire (then Lord Hartington) pushed by me into the room, I was seized by the alarmed official. Of course I apologised for my stupidity in taking the wrong turning, and I asked him about Mr. Gladstone's three mysterious hats in the hall, which he informed me Mr. Gladstone always had by him—three hats symbolic of his oratorical peculiarity of using the well-known phrase, "There are three courses open to us."

I patted Lord Hartington's dog on the head, and had quietly taken my departure before the official was called into the Cabinet and questioned about the "spy" who had so mysteriously interrupted their proceedings.

But what was perhaps a more daring and difficult feat than seeing a Cabinet Council was to disturb the "Sage of Queen Anne's Gate" in his semi-official residence. It so happened some few years ago I was commissioned by an illustrated paper to make a drawing of a peculiar scene that took place in the House of Commons. It was Mr. Gladstone's only appearance in the Strangers' smoking-room of the House, into which he had been lured by the Member for Northampton to attend a performance of a thought reader, which Mr. Labouchere had arranged perhaps to show his serious interest in the business of the country connected with our great Houses of Parliament. Not being present at this show, I had no means of getting material, and, being in a hurry, I boldly drove up to the house of the "Sage of Queen Anne's Gate." And as I always treat people as they treat others, I thought that a little of the Laboucherian cheek (shall I substitute the word for confidence?) would not be out of place in this instance. The servant took my card, and brought back the message that Mr. Labouchere was not at home. As I was at that moment actually acting the character of the "Sage," and remembering the stories, true or untrue, which he so delights in telling himself about his own coolness in matters probably not less important than this, I asked the servant to allow me to write a letter to Mr. Labouchere, and I was shown into his study, where I sat, and intended to sit, until Mr. Labouchere made his appearance. From time to time the servant looked in, but the letter was never written. And my thought-reading proved correct. Without my pen and pencil I drew Mr. Labouchere. He eventually came downstairs, and gave me all the information I required.