188
��NOTES BY THE WAY.
��Poytechnic
��Saturda y> January 17th, 1903, of Mr. Quintin Hogg, the founder ^ *^ e new Polytechnic, must be here noted. He was one of London's noblest citizens, and from the time of his school-days at Eton devoted his whole life to the poor boys of London. Upon the Polytechnic scheme he expended 100,OOOL He had designed the place for 2,000 members ; its present number (1903) is 18,000. His motto for the institute was " The Lord is our Strength."
The Field modestly expresses a hope that " when another half century shall have run its course those who are then serving it may be able to congratulate themselves on its prosperity, as we of to-day are permitted to do." In this desire all lovers of a pure press will join, and I close this sketch with the wish for all prosperity to my kind friends and neighbours at Windsor House.
��1903, Mar. 14.
Lord
Brougham's reported
��Urged by Fisher Unwin
��LORD BROUGHAM'S REPORTED DEATH IN 1839.
The death of Mr. John Temple Leader, on Sunday, the 1st of March, 1903, at his residence in Florence, at the age of ninety-three, recalls the well-known hoax Lord Brougham played upon the public. On the 21st of October, 1839, while at Brougham Hall, it was reported and generally believed in London that he had met his death by a carriage accident. All the newspapers of the 22nd except The Times, contained obituary notices of his career ; but it soon became known that the report was false, and Brougham was accused, not without reason, of having set it abroad himself. The Daily Telegraph of March 4th, 1903, gives the following :
" Mr. Alfred Montgomery, of Kingston House, Knightsbridge, received a letter purporting to have been written by Mr. Shafto, a well-known Durham squire, saying that he and Mr. Leader had been staying at Lord Brougham's seat in Cumberland. The writer said that they had been out driving in a carriage with Lord Brougham, when the carriage was overturned, and all the occupants thrown out, Lord Brougham being killed on the spot, while Mr. Leader's life was despaired of .... It subsequently proved that the letter had been inspired, if not written, by Brougham himself, who wanted to read his own obituary notices and enjoy the discomfiture of the papers which praised him under the impression that he was dead. The chairman of Mr. Leader's election committee had already started off for the North to say a long farewell to his friend when the hoax was discovered."
Mr. Leader was often urged by his friend Mr. Fisher Unwin to write his memoirs ; he did collect some in a little privately P rmte( ^ volume. Mr. Unwin recalls a conversation in which he spoke of Byron and Shelley, both of whom he had seen ; and another of his friends was Capt. Trelawny, Byron's comrade in the move- ment for Greek emancipation.
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