ONE OF OUR CONQUERORS.*
Mn. Housrox, who was Bottomley's confidential secretary for thirteen years, published a part of this biography in serial form in a Sunday newspaper. Not unnaturally, he was severely criticized in many quarters, for these chapters are an unsparing exposure of Bottomley, who was already lodged in gaol when they appeared Mr. Houston's public spirit and zeal for the truth made their appearance at a suspicious moment. The Foreword to this volume is the writer's reply
to such criticism. He tells us that he himself always acted in a perfectly honest and legal capacity for Bottomley ; that he is a creditor to Bottomley's estate for far more money than Bottomley ever paid him in the whole of his service ; that, to quote his own words, "I saw in every paper the most bitter criticisms of him as though he was nothing but the Arch-Humbug of History. I knew there was another side to him, and I wanted to 'put him right with the world.'" In short, Mr. Houston's apparent object is to show us that there is a Dr. Jekyll as well as a Mr. Hyde in his late chief.
Readers of his undoubtedly entertaining biography will be in some doubt as to whether he has succeeded. Most people who have had no illusions about Bottomley's real character will not, we imagine, discover in these chapters a more likeable rogue ; on the contrary, for all our author's protestations, they will find little in his pages that will prepossess them in Bottomley's favour. Mr. Houston has done the Mr. Hyde parts of his biography with great gusto, and the figure that emerges has little to recon-unend it. The critics of our modern democratic society, the only society in which such a career as Bottomley's would have been possible, will read this chronicle with glee ; it is, indeed, an unconscious indictment of a whole society. For a public figure of any dimensions Bottomley's personal assets were remarkably small. He had, as Mr. Houston, who is no fool, points out, the mass mind ; he had some power as a popular orator ; he possessed some legal knowledge and could conduct himself very adroitly in court ; and he was a magnificent showman with all the dubious arts of publicity at his command. He was the typical demagogue of our time. His face and figure probably helped him more than anything else to maintain his public pose of being a bluff, honest man of the people, a rough diamond, the friend of the bottom dog. His impudence was so magnificent that it almost disarms criticism ; he could stage manage his public appearances in a most masterly fashion ; he could hob-nob with everybody and really worked hard to create his legend. "I'm old Bottomley," he would remark to any bookstall clerk or ticket-collector, and, wherever he went, he tipped lavishly. He always launched his pinchbeck schemes on golden seas of champagne. He had a regular corps of professional applauders. Wealth flowed from him. "I never remember," Mr. Houston tells us, "making the journey from London to Manchester with Mr. Bottomley for less than 125, joint expenses."
For the rest, his equipment was amazingly slender. He had no power of organization and no financial ability. Mr. Houston, who ought to know, is emphatic on this point. He tells us that Bottomley "handled in all during his career nearly twenty million pounds of the public's money," and proceeds to show us what became of the forty odd ventures that Bottomley started. He was, we learn, "a perfect duffer in business." As a politician he was contemptible, unless he is regarded simply as an entertainer. Mr. Houston's chapters on his political career are chiefly an account of Bottomley's electioneering methods and political jobbery, and though they are certainly amusing, and perhaps enlightening, they do not prejudice us in our hero's favour. It is quite clear from this account that Bottomley was (we cannot escape from the past tense) one of those persons who will do anything but think. He had to have people round him : he was particularly fond of feminine, very feminine, company ; he never read a book except guides to the turf, or a newspaper beyond the headlines and the racing columns : all his schemes and activities, his telegrams, journeys, champagne, women, gambling, games of draughts, gossip with his satellites, were there to exorcise the spectre of thought.
Living thus, like so many men, never connecting one thought with another, existing on a mass of instinctive reactions and
• The Beal Horatio Bottomley. By Henry J. Houston. London : Hurst and jatackett. Oat 6d4 prejudices, as a popular journalist he was not to be despised. His principal business was the invention of catchwords and titles. The great bulk of his so-called articles in John Bull and the Sunday Pictorial were, according to Mr. Houston, actually written for him by obscure and underpaid associates of his. He was paid at least 1100 each for his Sunday articles, and Mr. Houston's account of how these things were concocted should prove both amusing and instructive to enthusiastic readers of the Sunday Press. Bottomley would think of a title, wire it to one of his literary "ghosts," add a few touches
(" soleing and heeling "—he called it) to the manuscript and then send it in. His biographer has a rich passage on this theme :—
" H. B.'s soleing and heeling' was not a very laborious process. I will give one actual incident, which is typical of the rest. The 'ghost's' article had been sent down to us at The Dicker, and we went over it together in the garden and approved it. Theii H. B. wrote on a sheet of paper : As I write I am sitting facing the lovely Sussex downs, my favourite collie by my side licking my hand and looking into my eyes, and my thoughts turn to the simple country parson of the village. (Take in " A ")." A ' was a large slice of the copy furnished by the 'ghost.' 'The bells of the old village church are ringing, calling the people to prayer,' he con- tinued. 'The simple country parson passes on his way to divine service, and my thoughts turn instinctively to (take in "B"),' another large slice. He ended up with God bless that simple country parson. Another striking article by Mr. Bottomley next week,' and the soleing and heeling' was finished. The copy was then handed over to a typist in order that the editor should not observe the mechanics of its production or the handwriting and the 1100 was earned once more.. When the cheque arrived H. B. fingered it lovingly and remarked : God bless that simple country parson.'"
And he might have added, with even more propriety, "God bless that simple British public." That public allowed Bottomley to lead it by the nose for a great many years, and then, tired of the performance, it threw him into prison. We have a suspicion that a properly organized society would not have allowed either thing to happen.
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