Recollections With Photogravure Portrait of the Author   By: David Christie Murray (1847-1907)

By David Christie Murray

With Photogravure Portrait of the Author and a number of Original Letters, of which one by George Meredith and another by Robert Louis Stevenson are reproduced in facsimile.

London

John Long Norris Street, Haymarket

1908

[Illustration: Frontispiece Portrait]

[Illustration: Titlepage]

CONTENTS

Chapter I........9

The Unlucky Day of the Fool's Month High Street, West Bromwich My First Pedestrian Triumph The Common English Bracken The Sense of Beauty.

Chapter II........14

My Father The Murrays The Courage of Childhood The Girl from the Workhouse Witchcraft The Dudley Devil The Deformed Methodist A Child's Idea of the Creator The Policeman Sir Ernest Spencer's Donkey The High Street Pork Butcher.

Chapter III........28

My Father's Printing Office The Prize Ring The Fistic Art First Steps in Education A Boy's Reading Carlyle Parents and Children A School Chum Technical Education Plaster Medallions.

Chapter IV........42

A First View 01 London Charles Dickens The Photograph On the Coach to Oxford The Manuscript of Our Mutual Friend An Unpublished Chapter Dickens as Reader The British Museum Reading Room.

Chapter V........53

I Enlist St George's Barracks The Recruits From Bristol to Cork Sergeants The Bounty and the Free Kit Life in the Army My Discharge A Sweet Revenge.

Chapter VI........67

Towards Journalism Dr Kenealy as Parliamentary Candidate The Wednesbury Advertiser George Dawson The First Private Execution Misprints The Black Country Sixty Years Ago Aunt Rachel Old Servants Local Poets Mining Dangers.

Chapter VII........84

George Dawson as Editor Birmingham Politicians John Bright's Nervousness The Black Lake Rescue The Pelsall Hall Colliery Disaster Archibald Forbes Out of Work Edmund Yates and The World The Hangman Human Oddities A Mislaid Cheque Hero Worship Three Stories of Carlyle Journalism.

CHAPTER VIII.......118

The House of Commons Press Gallery Disraeli as Orator The Story of the Dry Champagne The Labour Member Dr Kenealy's Fiasco Mr Newdigate's Eloquence Lord Beaconsfield's Success "Stone Walling" Robert Lowe's Classics The Press Gallery and Mr Gladstone.

Chapter IX........141

The Russo Turkish War Constantinople His Friend the Enemy Col. Archibald Campbell The Courage of Non Combatants Father Stick Turkish Economy Memories of Constantinople.

Chapter X........159

Constantinople The Massacre of Kesanlyk A Sketching Expedition Failure of Supplies Correspondent for the Scotsman and the Times Adrianople The Case of the Gueschoffs The Bulgarians.

Chapter XI........177

Retrospect Return to London Interview with Mr Gladstone at Ha warden Reminiscences.

Chapter XII........189

First Fiction A Life's Atonement The Casual Tramp Poor Law Relief Charles Reade The Cloister and the Hearth Wilkie Collins The Figure in Mediaeval Costume Joseph's Coat At Roche fort Rainbow Gold The Anarchist The Police The Text of Scripture.

Chapter XIII.......221

Eight Hours in Melbourne The Australian Born Australians and the Mother Country The Governor The Sydney Bulletin The Englishman in Australia Australian Journalism The Theatre The Creed of Athleticism The Future.

Chapter XIV.......257

Mr Rudyard Kipling and "Brugglesmith" New Zealand Its Climate People Future Neds Chum Sir George Grey.

Chapter XV........268

The Dreyfus Case Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Opinion Meeting at the Egyptian Hall Interview with Zola Maître Labori M. Henri Rochefort Major Esterhazy.

Chapter XVI.......285

A Few Letters George Meredith J. M. Barrie Advice on Going to America A Statue to Washington Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the Right Hon. Joseph Chamberlain, M.P. Robert Louis Stevenson Mr Edmund Gosse on the Neo Scottish School My Contemporaries in Fiction Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Mr Joseph Hocking Robert Buchanan Mr E. Marshall Hall, K.C.

Chapter XVII.......311