as a kind of mumbo-jumbo fetishism for the working class. 'Just the sort of tommy rot that curates talk about religion at mothers' meetings, and Oxford professors say about education at Cutlers' Feasts.' He instanced, I think, Sir William Richmond's address in one of the sections, and a paper sent in by G.F. Watts, as among the few Congress utterances that showed any grasp at all of the real bearing of art on the lives and work of the people.
The conversation then, to our younger folks' delight, turned to literature and art topics, Mavor, Craibe Angus, and R.A.M. Stevenson keeping up the Scottish end of it. Morris, I remember, mentioned the forthcoming publication of his 'Roots of the Mountains,' which was to be printed and bound in a new style, and this led to a talk about typography, mainly between Morris and Emery Walker. In the course of this talk Morris told us how he had first broached the idea in 1885 of setting up as a printer himself, an idea which eventuated in his founding of the famous Kelmscott Press. But the subject was highly technical, and I doubt if any of us ordinary chaps realised the important project that was then well on the way to success.
Thinking that the visit of our distinguished comrades would afford a good opportunity of bringing into touch with the movement a number of outsiders who might be in sympathy with Socialist ideas though not inclined to join any political Socialist body, we had arranged to hold a sort of reception gathering and conference on the Sunday afternoon. It would, at any rate, we thought, be an interesting way of gauging to what extent interest in Socialism was spreading among the more intelligent of our fellow-citizens.
Our invitation list included several of the university professors, a number of architects, artists, and literary people, a number of town councillors and public men associated with social reform schemes, and a number of leading trade unionists, co-operators, land restorers, Ruskin Society members, and the like. We calculated that the
