The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1898-05-24
GLADSTONE IS DEAD.
THE GRAND OLD RNGLISHMAN
PASSED AWAY THURS
DAY MORNING.
Sketch Of Ellis U@fl Life.

@0S GAS@CGSG bE16O0 Oh 61S generation
--Some of the More Conspicuous Acts
Of His Long, Brilliant and Successful
Career by Which He Endeared Himself
20 His Countrymen and Became
Famous the World Over.
LONDON, May 19-Hon. W. z. Glad.
stone died at 4o'clock this C~Thursday)
morning. He was born Dec. 90, 1909.
La the fall of 1921 Nj. Gladstone en-
tered Elton, where he spent the next
six years, finding among his school
mates the future Bishop Of Selwynand
Arthur Henry HalIam, whose death
inspired Tennyson to write: TN Memo
RAM" One OF his Tags in those days
describes him as good looking, rather
delicate youth, with q pale face and
brown, curling hair, not much given
to athletic exercise, although occasion
ally sculliDg, playing cricket and
hockey. He did not distinguish him.
self In scholarship, which, in the rather
degenerate Elton of sixty years ago,
was chiefly confined to making Latin
verses, but devoted much time to liter
airy ventures, starting q college jour-
nal, which he mainly wrote himself,
producing a turgid prose article or an
~exuberant poem on Richard, the Lion
hearted, as the exigencies of his am
bilious periodical demanded. After
two years of study with a private tutor,
young Gladstone went, in 1929, to Ok
ford, and became a member of Christ
church. At Oxford he found better
teachers than at Eson, and he devoted
himself to his hooks with such assiduity
that he became famous as the most re-.
markable undergraduate of his genera
tion. On his examination in 1881 he
carried off the highest honors of the
university, both in classics and mathe-
natics, graduating double first class.
The storyis still told by surviving con-
tempOraries Of how animmense throng
gathered to hear him examined now
his q~uestioners vaiDly sought to puzzle
him by the most difficult inquiries in
the classics; and now when the exam
liner in theology, after testing his
knowledge of some point, proposed to
drop it for another SUI sCt, the youth,
full student in his enthusiasm replied:
mo, sir; if you please we will not
leave it yet" and overwhelmed his
astonished elder with fresh stream Of
learning. While thus eminent In the
college studies, he was also prominent
in the literary activities Of the univer-
sity, and he became the President and
the recognized chief in the Oxford
Union, that debating society which has
sent forth q many English orators.
After leaving the university Mr..
Gladstone spent some time On the con-
tinent and he was in Italy in 1882,
when he was summoned home to enter
upon public life. No career in English
politics has shown q sharper contrast
between it's initiation and it's culmina-
ton. The present generation knows
Mr.. Gladstone as the champion of the
Irish disestablishment, the advocate of
sweeping parliamentary reforms, the
author of radical changes in the land
system Of Ireland in a word, as the
leader Of Liberal sentiment in the
United Kingdom. Yet he entered
Parliament the hearty champion of
old fashioned Toryism, made his maiden
speech in defence of slavery in the col
onies, and not long after was charac-
terized by Macauley as ''the rising
hope of the stern and unbending
Tories 1t vas as the protege of the
Duke of Newcastle, father of one Of his
college friends, that Mr.. Gladstone
was first elected to the House of Com.
mons from the borough of Newark, of
which the Duke was the registered
owner.
The election was held on December
10, 1882, and Mr.. Gladstone was just
completing his twenty-third year. One
of the earliest meRsure brought for.
ward at the opening session in 1888
was a scheme for the emancipation Of
slaves throughout the British Empire.
Mr.. G~ladstone's first speech was made
on this question, and he opposed i'm
mediate and indiscriminate enfran.
chisement. This famous measure, one
of the landmarks of British progress,
was carried in despite Of MI. Glad
stones opposition.
Mr.. Gladstone carried to Westmin-
ster the reputation which a Double
First Glass; at the university always
wins in England, and his maiden
speech in the House of Commons
showed that he was a born parliament
airy orator. When, near the close of
1924 tho WHO Ministry nj Lord Mel.