When the Association met that evening the whole of the candidates whose claims had been so eagerly discussed beforehand were swept ruthlessly aside, and nothing was talked of but the proposal of the _Leeds Mercury_. After some discussion--in the course of which one gentleman shrewdly pointed out that the anonymous letter suggesting the candidature of Mr. Gladstone was probably written by the editor of the _Mercury_ himself--the Association resolved by an overwhelming majority that Mr. Gladstone should be one of the two Liberal candidates for Leeds at the next election. And yet, at the very time when this proof of his extraordinary hold upon the affections of a great community was made public, the London newspapers were speaking of Mr. Gladstone as a politician who no longer possessed either reputation or influence. We, who had to live at a distance from Fleet Street, were at least able to form a sounder judgment upon this point. I may interpolate here an account of one of the institutions of Leeds that helped to reconcile me to my sojourn in that city. I do so because it has always seemed to me to be a model institution of the kind. This was the Conversation Club. It consisted of twelve members who were supposed to be more or less representative of the intellectual life of the town. The meetings were held monthly, each member entertaining his fellow-members once a year in his own house. After dinner the host acted as president, and the members present talked upon some selected subject. By an ingenious arrangement it was impossible that anyone should know beforehand what the subject of conversation on any particular evening would be. In this way the preparation of set arguments was prevented, and the club had nothing about it of the debating society. Speeches, of course, were strictly prohibited. We limited ourselves to real conversation, and many a delightful talk we had after dinner in those Leeds drawing-rooms in which we met. Any facility I may have gained in conversation I feel that I owe to the club, as I owe to it also many happy and instructive hours. Considering our limited numbers, and the fact that we met in a provincial town, we counted in our membership an usually large number of men who have made some mark in the world. Amongst the members were William Edward Forster, Sir Edward Baines, the Bishops of Ely (Woodford), Truro (Gott), Chester (Jayne), and Rochester (Talbot); Clifford Allbutt, Regius Professor of Medicine at Cambridge; Professor--now Sir Arthur--Rücker, who has been secretary of the Royal Society and President of the British Association, and is now Principal of the University of London; Professor Thorpe, the chemist and Government analyst, and Dr. Edison. This is not a bad list for so small a club, and one might easily give many other names, in addition, of men who would have been welcomed anywhere for their knowledge and attainments. In the year 1900 the club celebrated its jubilee, and its members can look back