Mr Gladstone, the Man of December.

Cromwell Argus, Issue I, 8 June 1870, Page 6

Mr Gladstone, the Man of December.

Mr Gladstone completed his sixtieth year on Wednesday, December 29, 1869. It has often been remarked that particular days seem to exercise a madnotic influence upon the fortunes and destinies of certain men. Without reciting the many histori-' Ml illustrations of this truth which Montaigne and others have laboriously collected, it will be sufficient for our purpose to notice that as the 3rd of September was call Jfe " Cromwell's Day," so the month of D« comber might be called " Mr Gladstone! Mouth ' It was on the 29th of Deceml>er,. Ibo9, that a child was born on Kngliah soil, but of Scottish paronts, who waa destined to share with Pitt and Peel the* honor of being one amongst the three greal'l British statesmen whom the nineteenth' century has hitherto produced. It was ia 1 December, 1832, that this same child, after he had carried away the highest academical honors that Oxford can bestow, and had attained a vigorous and energetic manhood, entered Parliament for the first time, as a member for Newark, it was in December, 1834, that he began his official career as Junior Lord of the Treasury ; and in December, 1845, that, as Secretary of State for the Colonies, he became, for the first time, a Cabinet Minister. It was in December, 1852, that he was gazetted to tha Chancellorship of the Exchequer—a in which he was to achieve a yet higher* distinction, sharing with his "illustriouH chief and colleague (Peel) grandf r worn than had ever been achieved by any othe 1 '! Finance Minister that Downing-streat, ha! ( ever known. And, finally, it was in D*' ceraber, 1868, that standing upon ttfl' threshold of his sixtieth year, he crowned the edifice of a successful statesman's life by becoming Prime Minister of this mighty empire, which stretches over some 8,600,000 square miles of territory, and is inhabited by 244,000,000 of souls—or, in other words, by one-fifth of the human race. ,