This day week Mr. Gladstone addressed a body of excursionists
who had gone to Hawarden by an excursion train, in connection with the Tyldesley and Bedford Leigh Liberal Association, from the terrace at Hawarden, and referred to the fun made of his speeches to excursionists in last week's Punch, in terms which showed that he had really enjoyed that clever bit of extravagance. He admitted that he had used very strong language about the Turkish cruelties, but pointed out that any language at all, not ludicrously inappropriate, must be strong. "What would you think of me if, speaking of the massacre of St. Bartholomew, I was to say, 'Well, certainly the conduct of the people who committed that massacre was very improper '? " Not a word he had said in the autumn had been retracted in the House of Commons, "but various gentlemen who used violent language about me were good enough to explain and apologise." Mr. Gladstone also ridiculed the charge that the war was of his making ; and certainly a war which he could make would hardly be a war between Russians and Turks, to neither of whom can his eloquence appeal.
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