When people tell the truth they are generally disliked. From Socrates, to the latest of his modern philosophic imitators, the bowl of death-dealing hemlock has always been mixed by the world and held to the lips of those who dare to say uncomfortably plain things. When the late W. E. H. Lecky set down the truth of Cecil Rhodes, in his book entitled _The Map of Life_, and I, the present writer, ventured to quote the passage in “The Vulgarity of Wealth,” when that article was first published, a number of uninformed individuals rashly accused me of “abusing Cecil Rhodes.” They were naturally afraid to attack the greater writer. Inasmuch, said they: “If Mr. Lecky had _really_ suggested that Cecil Rhodes was not, like Brutus, ‘an honourable man,’ he, Mr. Lecky, would never have received the King’s new ‘Order of Merit,’ nor would Mr. Rhodes have been the subject of so much eulogy. For, of course, the King has read _The Map of Life_, and is aware of the assertions contained in it.” Now I wish, dear gossips all, you would read _The Map of Life_ for yourselves! You will find, if you do, not only plain facts concerning Rhodes, and the vulgarity, i.e. the ostentation of wealth, but much useful information on sundry other matters closely concerning various manners and customs of the present day. For one example, consider the following: “The amount of pure and almost spontaneous malevolence in the world is probably far greater than we at first imagine.... No one, for example, can study the anonymous press, without perceiving how large a part of it is employed _systematically_, _persistently_ and _deliberately_ in fostering class, or individual or international hatreds, and often _in circulating falsehoods to attain this end_. Many newspapers notoriously depend for their existence on such appeals, and more than any other instruments, they inflame and perpetuate those permanent animosities which most endanger the peace of mankind. The fact that such newspapers are becoming in many countries the main and almost exclusive reading of the million, forms the most serious deduction from the value of modern education.” Let it be noted, once and for all, that it is not the present writer who thus speaks of “the anonymous press,” but the experienced, brilliant and unprejudiced scholar who was among the first to hold the King’s “Order of Merit.” And so once again to our muttons:--