MR GLADSTONES NATIONALITY.

Evening Star, Issue 6815, 1 February 1886, Page 3

MR GLADSTONES NATIONALITY.

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —Just one word more on this subject. Your correspondents, it would appear, were not so much “ lost in delight at the discovery of Mr Gladstone’s Scotch descent” as “Liverpudlian” seems to have been lost in dismay at the omission of certain particulars regarding the statesman’s birthplace. I regret having given the gentleman any uneasiness. It was quite unintentional on my part, I can assure him; but as “ such trifles ” did not, so far ns I can see, come reasonably within the scope of my communication I naturally did not supply them. Had I been concerned in showing, not so much that Mr Gladstone was a Scotchman and an Englishman in the highest sense of the word, but that he was a “Liverpudlian” (Heaven preserve us!), I would, of course, have consulted a guide to Liverpool, and would, no doubt, have been able to supply the people of Dunedin with even more “ trifles” than your injured correspondent seta forth. I dare say I would have been able to inform your readers not only of the house in which Mr Gladstone was bom, but the names of the medical attendants and the nurses who were present on the auspicious occasion. Besides tolling the public that the house in Rodney street “is a large, plain, and substantial edifice of red brick,” and is now occupied by a physician, and not a chimney sweep (for property has evidently depreciated in that quarter), I might have been able to state the precise extent of the frontage, the dimensions of the back yard, and the particular kiln in which the red bricks were baked. Extending my researches, I would, no doubt, have been in a position to state that, like all boys of Scotch descent, Mr Gladstone was very precocious; that he was very fond of nursery tales, having a preference for Goldsmith’s “Goody Two Shoci” and Lesage’s “ Devil on Two .Sticks”; that he was a clever hand at marbles when he was young, but that he “ now forgets the long-familiar cry of ‘ knuckle down,’ and at ‘ tip-cheese’ and ‘odd and even’ his hand is out.” I might have mentioned that as Mr Gladstone was “ still a little boy ” it was quite natural that he should remove to Scaforth with his parents, otherwise the consequences for him might have been serious. Indeed, there is no end to the particulars which I might have given. I might even have attempted a pen-and-ink sketch of the “ pretty little village of Scaforth, on the banks of the Mersey ” ; then have branched of! into a comprehensive summary of the history of the port and trade of Liverpool; and then have given a brief genealogical survey of the Glynnc family, concluding that portion of the letter with a few particulars of the Hawardcn estate and the number of trees which have fallen under the axe of the G.O.M. since he became incorporated in the family. AVhat more appropriate, having finished this, than to wind up with a sketch of the ecclesiastical career of Ernest R. Wilbcrforce, the first bishop of the newlycreated see of Newcastle. Possibly I might have made all this interesting, but I could not have made it relevant to the point raised by “Glcncorsc”; and, having shown that Mr Gladstone, is a Scotchman and an Englishman too, I did not think it at all necessary to prove that he was a “Liverpudlian ” or a “ Dicky Sam.” —I am, etc., James Jardin’k. Dunedin, January 30.