The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1915-07-11

He is an agreeable man, who dis
penses with much kindly charm and
rather stately courtesy that hospitality
for which has grand old Elizabethan
country seat of Hatfield has been so
celebrated for centuries--a palace OF
such perfect construction hat in all
the many hundreds OF years of its ex-
istence and uninterrupted habitation
it's parqueted floors have never had to
be replaced Or even repaired. Lord
Salisbury is of course more Tory than
Unionist. but will never attain the emf
hence of his father, or the political
Importance Of his brother. Lord Rob-
ert, owing to that persistent strain Of
atavism which flnds its expression in
a curious inability on his part to real
lie that there Is any difference be-
tween the sixteenth and twentieth
centuries.
or this he CAV an odd illustration a
couple of years Ago., at a great church
congress at Southampton, in which he
was called upon to deliver an address
on the subject OF rural housing. that
is to say. the housing Of the agricul-
tural laborer, a matter to which he
has devoted much time and money.
But what spoiled everything on that
occasion, blinded the public to his
merits as a kindly and generous land
lord to the people on his estate and
led to his being subjected to no end
Of abuse by the Liberal and Radical
press was his depreciation Of furnish
ing laborers' cottages with bathrooms.
Quoth he: why ask the agricul-
tural classes to demand bathrooms
when they do not want baths. and so
unnecessarily increase the expense to
both tenant and landlord? Why sug-
gest that the unskilled laborer requires
a parlor in addition to a kitchen, when
he cannot pay rent for a parlor, and
every parlor added means less cot
tages? Neither baths nor parlors save
souls, nor. do they make any sub
s%tantial difference in public health"
What, of course, Lord Salisbury
meant was that, given a certain sum
of money, 1t was far better to build
a larger number of cottages without
parlors and bathrooms Herewith than
a smaller number provided with
those conveniences. But the way in
which he put 1t enabled his political
adversaries to claim that he enter
tanned medieval ideas to the effect
that agricultural laborers and the
~peasantry generally were unworthy
OF any luxuries, even when the at
ter took the form Of a tub.
Then there Ii Lord Hugh Cecil, the
"enfant terrible" of the Conservative
party, whom some have described as
a cross between a saint and a Jester.
; There are those who declare that he
is blessed" and theirs that he IL
"cursed' with a most extraordinary
sense Of humor, and he Is continu-
ally giving expression to his keen
sense Of the ridiculous and Of the
~paradoxical, even in the most seri-
Gus matters.
Neither his " party, the Con
servatlves, nor yet The Liberals ant
Radicals, are cvcr safe from his
} quips. and his rhetorical gymnastics
are as brilliant as unexpected and a.
diverting as his eNtravaganCes Of ges.
, ture and the twistings Of his body
3 when addressing the House. Discus
sions have often taken place as tC
whether the contortions to which hi
! treats his fellow legislators in the
Commons are OF Christian or OF
Buddhist origin.
One particular clasp Of the hant
and turn Of the head would appear
to he derived from some illuminated