Death Of John Bull

Several weeks ago a broken 73-year-old man applied to the British Government for an old-age pension of $1.71 weekly. Fortnight ago it was refused. London editors glanced at the name below the application and sent reporters scurrying to the free ward of Middlesex Hospital. The name was Horatio William Bottomley.sb

Propped up behind a white hospital screen the flabby old gentleman gave his last newspaper interview.

"I have been several kinds of a fool," said he. "But I might not have come off so badly had I not been so loyal to my friends. That is one of my very few principles and virtues--loyalty to my friends.... I cannot really believe that Mr. H. B. is going to end like this. I could have got anywhere and been anything if I had not made a fool of myself."

Last week, still in the hospital ward, he died. By his bedside was a friend as loyal as his own boast, the darling of his salad days and toast of the old Savoy. Peggy Primrose, now plump Mrs. Peggy Lowe. His last gesture was to refuse an allowance of -L-1 a week from the bitter, hollow-cheeked printer who sent him to jail and smashed his career: Reuben Bigland.

No history of Britain's part in the World War is complete without a chapter on Horatio Bottomley. He was worth a regiment of recruiting sergeants in the early days of the War. He breakfasted with David Lloyd George regularly at Downing Street, reviewed the Grand Fleet from Admiral Lord Beatty's flagship, earned the title of Britain's Unofficial Prime Minister. Nervous over the introduction of conscription, the Asquith Cabinet demanded just one thing: the support of Horatio Bottomley.

Where he was born no one is certain, but it was in 1860 and the parents were Elizabeth Holyoake and William King Bottomley. His parents had a pathetic desire to make an artist of him. Horatio ran away to earn his living as a day laborer. He studied shorthand, became a court stenographer, studied law and though never admitted to the bar, used to boast that he was "the best lay lawyer in England.'' At various times he was connected with some 20 or 30 different companies which failed, successively for about $90,000,000, but publishing was his real forte. At the age of 25 he founded the Financial Times, then bought The Sun. His greatest success was a weekly which with a flash of inspiration he called John Bull. Pudgy, pompous, curly-haired, Horatio Bottomley looked like John Bull. To millions of Britons he was John Bull. His editorial policies paralleled those of long-faced William Randolph Hearst: sensationalism, flaring headlines, ultranationalism. Again like Hearst, he kept a convenient goat to blame for everything: in his case the U. S.

He won his first seat in Parliament in 1906: another bankruptcy forced him to resign in 1912. In 1918 he was back again with a plurality big enough to cause serious concern that he was about to become Britain's next Prime Minister.

It was his boast that John Bull was the first paper to call Germans "Huns." He gave David Lloyd George his two campaign slogans "HANG THE KAISER!" and "MAKE THE HUN PAY!" No paper was more obliging with atrocity stories; none, when the War was over, quicker to fatten on anti-U. S. prejudice. MORE SWANK FROM THE YANKS was one of his favorite headlines. He was passionately addicted to just one brand of champagne, Pommery Nature, 1906, and bought up almost the entire vintage. Before each of his roaring speeches, for which he was paid enormous fees, Horatio Bottomley would gulp half a bottle and wipe his mouth on his sleeve.

In 1922 his house of cards collapsed. During and after the War plump Horatio helped the British Government against its own wishes and his own paper by organizing a series of lotteries, entitled Victory Club, Victory Bond Club, Thrift Bond Prize Club, Victory Derby Sweepstake, etc., etc. Patriots who could not afford a British bond bought tickets. Horatio Bottomley bought bonds and distributed huge prizes to the lucky winners.

An associate in these lotteries was the dour printer Reuben Bigland, known on British racetracks as "Telephone Jack." Telephone Jack in 1921 decided that he had not been sufficiently taken care of. He printed and circulated a pamphlet entitled "The Downfall of Horatio Bottomley." This was followed by a second number, "What Horatio Bottomley Has Done for His Country." which contained 24 blank pages. Horatio Bottomley sued for libel, lost, and inadvertently gave away the whole story of the War and Victory loan lotteries. He was tried in 1922 on the specific charge of misappropriating -L-5,000. Prosecution brought out that not only were many prizewinners Bottomley friends, but of the -L-493,000 handled in the loan lotteries only -L-23,000 could be accounted for. Horatio Bottomley was sentenced to seven years in prison. John Bull passed into other hands.

In 1927, with two years of his term unexpired, Horatio Bottomley was released. For a while it looked as though he were about to stage a great comeback. Attempting another John Bull he started John Blunt, which gained an immediate circulation of 500,000 by promising disclosures of hideous tortures in British jails. The campaign and circulation faded together when stiff-necked Home Secretary Sir William ("Jix") Joynson-Hicks proved that the hideous conditions in British jails consisted in the inability of Horatio Bottomley to obtain his Pommery 1906 and other special privileges. Six dull years of neglect and increasing poverty were followed by sickness, the application for an old-age pension (a bill that Horatio Bottomley M.P. helped sponsor) and the ultimate insult, the offer of -L-1 a week from Telephone Jack.

sbPronounced as spelled, though Horatio Bottomley loved to tell how he once called on Lord Cholmondeley. was rebuked by the butler: ''You mean. Lord Chumley!''

''Certainly," replied Horatio, "and will you be so good as to announce Mr. Bumly."

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