In the early summer of 1885 I ventured, for the first time during my editorship at Leeds, to take a holiday whilst Parliament was sitting. It had always previously been my rule never to leave my post during the session of Parliament, but in 1885 everything seemed to be in a state of profound calm, so far as the political world was concerned. General Gordon was dead, but the Ministry had survived his loss. It had even survived the ignominious collapse of the attempt to "break the power of the Mahdi at Khartoum" which it had professed to make. One knew that bitter intrigues were in progress behind the scenes. But now that Mr. Forster was off the scene Mr. Chamberlain seemed bent upon trying conclusions with Mr. Gladstone himself, and was preaching those doctrines of an extreme and Socialistic Radicalism which the Conservatives frankly denounced as being based on the policy of Jack Cade. But time was needed for the successful development of the new political movement, and meanwhile public affairs seemed to be running in a very humdrum course. I thought it, in consequence, a favourable opportunity for carrying out a long-cherished intention of visiting the Land of the Midnight Sun. Accordingly, at the beginning of June I went over to Bergen in a Wilson steamer from Hull. The vessel was crowded with salmon-fishers and their wives, going to Norway for the summer fishing. I was much amused by the extreme clannishness of these persons. They absolutely refused to exchange a word with anybody who was not going to Norway for purposes of sport. Those of us who, like myself, were going there either for health or to see the country were regarded by the salmon-fishing people as intruders, whose presence on the scene was to be actively and rudely resented. I have travelled much in my time, and have had only too many opportunities of observing the ridiculous and offensive behaviour of the English snob when he finds himself in foreign parts; but I do not think that I ever saw snobbish vulgarity carried further than it was by the salmon-fishers on this Wilson steamer in the summer of 1885.