On Friday, September 9th, Lord Rosebery, opening a Jubilee Cottage
Hospital at Bishop Auckland, told an excellent story of the love of addressing their fellow-creatures which is so strongly felt by many otherwise respectable people. At a public execution in the United States the Sheriff asked the condemned man if there was anything he would like to say before the fatal moment. He refused, on which a well-known local politician edged his way forward and said : " If our ill-starred fellow-citizen has no remarks to offer, I should like to say a few words on the necessity of a revision of our commercial tariff." From this grim, good story Lord Rosebery passed, with that inimitable lightness of touch which makes him the most charming of topical speakers, to the exhaustibility of our coal-supplies and the virtues of our Sovereign. If his panegyric of the Queen was somewhat wanting in spontaneity, it was no doubt as sincere as it was well deserved. He dwelt chiefly on the Queen's wonderful sympathy with all sufferers. That is truly one of her chief characteristics, and Lord Rosebery might truly have said of her as it was said of Cromwell, that she " was naturally compassionate towards objects in distress" and did "exceed in tenderness towards sufferers." To keep such tenderness towards human suffering when one's life-work is with great affairs and the movements of high policy is no mean achievement. It is a mark of true nobility of character in great Sovereigns, as in surgeons, to keep a tender heart.
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