in mind that as England is inhabited by Englishmen, and Scotland by Scotchmen, so Ireland is inhabited by Irishmen.’ Let us return to the Reform Bill. It was evident that London was getting excited on the subject. When the Liberals resigned in June, some ten thousand people assembled in Trafalgar Square and passed strong resolutions in favour of Reform. They then marched to Carlton House, singing litanies and hymns in honour of Mr. Gladstone. As he was away, Mrs. Gladstone and her family came out on the balcony to acknowledge the popular tribute. At meetings all over England Mr. Gladstone was hailed as the hero of the people. He had become ‘the People’s William.’ On July 13 Lord Houghton wrote to a friend on the Continent: ‘The change of Ministry has passed over very quietly. It was a real collapse, and inevitable by human skill. Gladstone showed a fervour of conviction which has won him the attachment of three hundred men and the horror of the rest of the House of Commons. He will be all the better for a year or two of opposition.’ It was in the course of this debate that Mr. Gladstone, replying to Lord R. Montagu’s expression that the working classes, if armed with the franchise, would be an invading and destroying army, evoked a ringing cheer when, in a climax of enthusiasm, he asked: ‘Are they not our own flesh and blood?’ In the autumn Mr. Gladstone, with his family, spent a short while in Rome, where he had an interview with the Pope, which gave rise to rumours he had formally to deny, that during that visit he had made arrangements with the Pope to destroy the Irish Church Establishment, and that he was a Roman Catholic in heart. In 1867 Mr. Disraeli, as leader of the House of Commons, introduced his celebrated Reform Bill, or, rather, Reform Resolutions. He proposed to reduce the occupation franchise for boroughs to a £6 rating, in counties to £20. The franchise was also to be extended to persons having £50 in the funds or £50 in a savings bank for a year. Payment of £20 of direct taxes would also be a title to the franchise, as would a University degree. Votes would further be given to clergymen, ministers of religion generally, members of the learned professions, and certificated schoolmasters. It was proposed to disfranchise Yarmouth, Lancaster, Reigate, and Totnes, and to take one member each from twenty-three boroughs with less than seven thousand inhabitants. The House would have thirty seats to dispose of, and it was proposed to allot fourteen of them to new boroughs in the Northern and Midland districts, fifteen to counties, and one to the London University; the second division of the Tower Hamlets two members, and several new county divisions would have two additional members each. The scheme would add 212,000 voters to the boroughs, and 206,500 to the counties. Mr. Gladstone pointed out the inconvenience of proceeding by resolution, and the Government undertook to introduce a Bill.