Evening star., 1923-11-28
BY THE MARauIsE DE FoNTENoy

"Couthy" is a relatively unknown
word for which the English language
! is indebted to the late William E.
Gladstone, the great prime minister
of the latter half of Queen Victoria's s
reign. At any rate, SO 1t would ap-
pear from ]. H. Spender's biography
| Of Sir Henry Campbell Bannerman,
who died as premier in 1908. From
the correspondence published in the
! book it is made apparent that. for
some reason or other, Queen Victoria
entertained n pronounced dislike for
| the late Hugh Childers. who had been
| first lord of the admiralty and who
was anxious, on the formation of the
ministry of 1886, to be named secre-
| tary of state for war He had brought
the queen. sorely against her will, to
permit boards to be worn in the
navy. She was very old-faShioned
and conservative and regarded the
two armed services as her particular
bailiwick and objected to all changes,
even when they took the shape of
badly needed reforms.
Her cousin, the old Duke of Cam
bridge, then chief,
wrote to her from the war depart
ment: 81 am glad that you insisted on
Mr. Campbell Bannerman coming
The former is a very nice. calm and
pleasant man."
Campbell Bannerman was rather
reluctant to take over the war de-
partment. realizing that 1t was bound
to bring him into more or less con-
f1ict with the members of the reign
ing house. Gladstone reassured him
with the words: "Oh, you'll get on all
right with them. You will be calm
and pleasant and canny and 'couthy."
Gladstone wished to find some means
couth, so he invented the word of
"couthy," which means the opposite
of uncouth and something over.
At the time when the old Duke of
i Cambridge wrote thus about Camp
bell Bannerman, he little realized
that the latter was the statesman
destined to accomplish what an entire
generation of cabinet ministers had
failed to achieve, namely, his retire.
ment from the war department,
where, with his intense conservatism,
he was a terrible obstacle to all re-
FORM Queen Victoria, herself, sug-
gested to him, when he was eighty,
that it would be well for him to take
a rest, and that he ought to resign
on the ground of advanced age and
necessarily impaired Vigor. where
upon, he promptly wrote to her that
he and she were almost of the same
age: that he was every bit as well
able to fulfill his duties as she was,
and that when she got ready to abdi-
cate and step down from her throne,
he would walk out of the war de-
partment He was blunt old fellow,
and the queen, who had heard several
truths from her frank-spoken kins-
man, did not attempt to return to the
But. to the amazement of every
body, Campbell Bannerman succeed
ed where all had failed and induced
the duke to resign without hurting
his feelings. Indeed. they remained
the very best of friends until the
death of the duke. But, then, Camp
hell Bannerman was "couthy,"
whereas the duke was rather the re-
verse.
Now that the general elections are
in progress in England. it may be
timely to recall the failure of the
attempt of Sir Harry Johnston, the
we'll known explorer, to get into the
house of commons. Sir Harry Is a
most gifted man, who has been every
where and done everything. He has