Photo by Strauss.
WINSTON CHURCHILL.
WINSTON CHURCHILL
Late in the year 1900 it suddenly became plain to some of the mystified inhabitants of the literary world that there were two Winston Churchills.
It is indeed remarkable how long the error lived which confounded Winston L. S. Churchill, war correspondent and politician, and eldest son of Lord Randolph Churchill, with plain Winston Churchill, the author of "Richard Carvel."
The error cropped out soon after the beginning of the South African war, when the Englishman, at a place called Estcourt, took gallant part in the defence of an armored train bound to the relief of Ladysmith. It was the result of one of the sentences in the report of the action: "Winston Churchill's brilliant behavior is compared with the gallant action in the Tirah campaign, which won the Victoria cross for Lord Fincastle, who was also acting as a newspaper correspondent."
Immediately some persons, who should have known better, jumped to the conclusion that this Winston Churchill was the author of a book then extremely popular in this country. It is a notable commentary on the persistency of false ideas that the two Churchills were not, in certain quarters, positively distinguished from each other until they met in Boston the middle of last December. It was an interesting meeting, as we gather from the notes of a witness.