his enemies as he went on, steadily and quietly, with his statement of
the case; but there was no serious opposition to the measure which was
afterwards carried in due course of legislation.

I was left to think two or three things about the matter which, though
not strictly photographic, are yet so superficial that they will not be
out of place here. Several members spoke besides Mr. Burns, but the
labor leader was easily first, not only in the business quality of what
he said, but in his business fashion of saying it. As much as any of
them, as the oldest-familied and longest-leisured of them, his manners
had

"that repose
Which marks the caste of Vere de Vere,"

and is supposed to distinguish them from those of the castes of Smith
and Brown. But I quickly forgot this in considering how far socialism
had got itself realized in London through the activities of the County
Council, which are so largely in the direction of municipal control. One
hears and reads as little of socialism now in London as in New York, but
that is because it has so effectually passed from the debated principle
to the accomplished fact. It has been embodied in so many admirable
works that the presumption is rather in favor of it as something truly
conservative. It is not, as with us, still under the ban of a prejudice
too ignorant to know in how many things it is already effective; but
this is, of course, mainly because English administration is so much
honester than ours. It can be safely taken for granted that a thing
ostensibly done for the greatest good of the greatest number is not
really done for the profit of a few on the inside. The English can let
the County Council put municipal boats on the Thames with the full