[44] Note that I fully admit the right of the County of Durham to this meaningless title, and also to immunity from me. [45] “Nicholas Nickleby,” chapter xxiv. [46] “That it would tend to secure a greater uniformity of standard among the Inspectors, if the chief Inspectors ceased to have charge of small districts of their own, and confined themselves to the larger areas which they have to supervise, &c., &c.,” p. 76, Report. [47] “Protection,” said Mr. Disraeli, “is not only dead, it is d----d.” A modern Protectionist would lament that the statesman did not read _Alton Locke_, published before the utterance, ch. xxii: “And sae the deevil’s dead.... At ony rate I’d no bury him till he began smell a wee strong like. It’s a grewsome thing, is premature interment, Alton, laddie!” CHAPTER XXIX ISLE OF MAN “Bold words affirmed, in days when faith was strong, And doubts and scruples seldom teased the brain, That no adventurer’s bark had power to gain These shores if he approached them bent on wrong.” Wordsworth.[48] The question was often put to me, Why should the Manchester inspectors visit the Isle of Man? They have to cross the territory of at least three friendly colleagues to reach it, and surely they have enough to do at home? But the satisfying answer was that with no less inducement could the Manchester staff be kept together. When I was transferred to that City of Dreadful Night, I was inclined to think that The Island, as we affectionately called it, was a Heligoland, a Philippine Island: let who will, take it. But the Manchester staff soon undeceived me. “We work,” said they, with tears in their manly eyes, “in smoke, fog, and gas-light for five or six months in the year: if it were not for the Island we should die: _keep the brightest jewel in your diadem_.” And, therefore, when the Board hinted that I was overpeopled, and that without the I.O.M. I should be poorer but happier, I replied with the familiar Terentian words, “HUMANI nihil a me alienum puto.” (All that is of Man, is mine.) In the following May came my first Essay on Man. Certainly, as the crew of Ulysses sang, “Our island home is distant far.” There is a great gulf fixed between Liverpool and Douglas, and out of the tourist season, when only the smaller boats are running, one is tempted to think that the Liverpool inspector, who probably examines night-schools in “The Principles of Navigation,” is a fitter man for the post than one whose nautical ideas are limited by the Ship Canal and the Pennine Range. But the sight of Douglas Bay, the clear sky, the pure air, and the quiet of the night--before the trippers arrive--bring consolation, and then content.