The full account of the very amusing pedigree and biography
'discovered for Mr. Gladstone by the Turkish news-writers at 'Constantinople is even better than the brief summary lately telegraphed to London. After recounting his pig-keeping origin in Bulgaria, the writer of the narrative proceeds to say that " he worships gold more than the Messiah ; for gold, he is capable of slandering the holy Virgin." " His gluttony for gold makes Glad- stone look yellow. According to those who know him, he is of 'middling height, with a yellow face, wearing closely-cut whiskers in the European style ; and as a sign of the Satanic spirit, his forehead and upper forehead are bare ; his evil temper has made his hair fall off, so that from a distance he might be taken for quite 'bald. He has a long nose, a long face, and a very ugly mouth, as the words he utters indicate, and when he shuts his mouth two front teeth are seen protruding a decimetre beyond the lower lip." A decimetre is nearly four inches, so the writer must have wished to represent Mr. Gladstone as a boar, with tusks that would Tend and pierce,—in which, perhaps, speaking symbolically, he did not go so very far astray.
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