FAMILY TREASURES
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Perhaps the writer of the article, "Family Treasures," in your last week's issue, with whose opinions most of your readers will heartily agree, may like to be put right in one of his references.
It was Charles Kingsley—not a Times leader-writer- who provided the thought with which Mr. Pullen begins and concludes. He may care to have the passage. It occurs in a letter to Professor Lorimer of Edinburgh; and is dated December 17th, 1866. Kingsley says : "I think the giving intellect and civilization its due weight, by means of a plurality of votes, as you so well advise, practically hopeless just now. But is there no body or influence in the State which may secure them their due weight nevertheless ? I think that there is, namely, the House of Lords. You seem to regard, as the majority do, the Peers as standing alone in the State, and representing only themselves. I, on the contrary, look at them as representing every silver fork in Great Britain. . . . The House of Lords seems to me to represent all heritable property, real or personal."—I gm,
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