By Sir C. RIVERS WILSON, G.C.M.G.
Edited by E. MacALISTER.
One Volume. With Portraits. Demy 8vo. Cloth. 12s. 6d. net.
The autobiography of Sir C. Rivers Wilson covers a long period and touches on many interesting historical events. Sir Rivers, who was born in 1831 and died in 1916, passed the greater part of his life in the service of his country. While still a young man at the Treasury, he was for some time private secretary to Mr. Disraeli, of whom he has some good stories to tell, and he has much to say about the celebrated “Bob Lowe,” whose notorious “match tax” has lately been passed by Mr. McKenna. For over twenty years Sir Rivers Wilson was the head of the National Debt Office, but his most interesting work during that time was when he was specially detached for financial diplomacy in Egypt, and his account of his difficult dealings with the Khedive Ismail Pasha brings much that is new to light. It is particularly relevant at the present time, when Prince Hussein, the son of Ismail Pasha, has been established as independent Sultan of Egypt under the British Protectorate. Sir Rivers gives us most entertaining chapters on Ferdinand de Lesseps, le Grand Français, whom he knew intimately, and on many other Parisian celebrities of later days. At the age of sixty-four Sir Rivers became connected with America, first through C. P. Huntington and the Central Pacific Railway, then as President of the Grand Trunk Railway, which he raised to a position of great prosperity. All this he tells in a modest and unassuming way, with many touches of humour. His style is “chatty” and genial, and it is obvious that Sir Rivers Wilson was a man of few enemies and many friends.
LONDON: EDWARD ARNOLD, 41 & 43 MADDOX STREET, W.
FROM SAIL TO STEAM.
NAVAL RECOLLECTIONS, 1878-1905.
By ADMIRAL C. C. PENROSE FITZGERALD,