LORD ROSEBERY’S LITTLE JOKE

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1507, 17 January 1901, Page 13

LORD ROSEBERY’S LITTLE JOKE

Lord Rose-berry enlivened the last meeting of the Scottish History Society, in Edinburgh, with a sally of wit at the expense of the newspapers that are trying to convince us that it is hardly possible to exist without a- certain bulky work in many voluim.es. He said: Without any wish to disparage that work, because I say I have always religiously purchased it, and without any wish to acquire statistics of the number of people who already possess .it and who daily peruse it, I feel creeping over me the * conviction that it is indispensable to life, that it supercedes all other sources of information, and in future the sine qua non of a library will be the possession of the “Encyclopaedia Britannica.” I begin to see creeping over your faces a kind of suspicion that I am trying to advertise this work. J think a moment’s reflection will convince you that it is quite unnecessary. I open my letter-bag, and I find specimens for binding the “Encyclopaedia Britannica” ; I .open another envelope, which contains some architectural designs which interest me extremely until i see it is a book, case for enshrouding the “Encyclopaedia”; and, weary of my correspondence. I turn to my newspapers, and I find that in every column 1 am-exhorted, as my last chance in this life-—the sands are running out. I am told', and I expect to find some serious political developin' nt —-but I am told that I must take the last moment that remains to me. or else I may go down to my grave without the. “Encyclopaedia Britannica.” 1 think I am justified in saying that, if all this bo true, and there is hardly a periodical I take up that does not invite me to this alluring purchase—if this bo true, I think we may look forward to the speedy end of these societies, and that this interesting work will be substituted for them. Until that millennium comes I have great pleasure in presiding over such a society as this and in moving the adoption of its report,