robes, and various officials in wigs and gowns lent to the scene a curiously antique aspect to the American eye.  Happily, the City of London has carefully preserved the historical traditions connected with it and with the Guilds, or groups of merchants, which in the past had so much to do with the management of its affairs.  Among the invited guests, for example, were the Master of the Mercers’ Company, the Master of the Grocers’ Company, the Master of the Drapers’ Company, the Master of the Skinners’ Company, the Master of the Haberdashers’ Company, the Master of the Salters’ Company, the Master of the Ironmongers’ Company, the Master of the Vintners’ Company, and the Master of the Clothworkers’ Company.  These various trades, of course, are no longer carried on by Guilds, but by private firms or corporations, and yet the Guild organization is still maintained as a sort of social or semi-social recognition of the days when the Guildhall was not merely a great assembly-room, but the place in which the Guilds actually managed the affairs of their city.  It was in such a place and amid such surroundings that Mr. Roosevelt was formally nominated and elected a Freeman of the ancient City of London.

Mr. Roosevelt’s speech was far from being extemporaneous; it had been carefully thought out beforehand, and was based upon his experiences during the previous March, in Egypt; it was really the desire of influential Englishmen in Africa to have him say something about Egyptian affairs that led him to make a speech at all.  He had had ample time to think, and he had thought a good deal, yet it was plainly to be seen that the frankness of his utterance, his characteristic attitude and gestures, and the pungent quality of his oratory at first startled his audience, accustomed to more conventional methods of public speaking.  But he soon captured and carried his hearers with him, as is indicated by the exclamations of approval on the part of the audience which were incorporated in the verbatim report of the speech in the London Times.  It is no exaggeration to say that his speech became the talk of England—­in clubs, in private homes, and in the newspapers.  Of course there was some criticism, but, on the whole, it was received with commendation.  The extreme wing of the Liberal party, whom we should call Anti-Imperialists, but who are in Great Britain colloquially spoken of as “Little Englanders,” took exception to it, but even their disapproval, save in a few instances of bitter personal attack, was mild.  The London Chronicle, which is perhaps the most influential of the morning newspapers representing the Anti-Imperialist view, was of the opinion that the speech was hardly necessary, because it asserted that the Government and the British nation have long been of Mr. Roosevelt’s own opinion.  The Westminster Gazette, the leading evening Liberal paper, also asserted that “none of the broad considerations advanced by Mr. Roosevelt have been absent from the minds of Ministers, and of Sir Edward Grey in particular.  We regret that Mr. Roosevelt should have thought it necessary to speak out yesterday, not on the narrow ground of etiquette or precedent, but because we cannot bring ourselves to believe that his words are calculated to make it any easier to deal with an exceedingly difficult problem.”