THE LAST CHAPTER
LORD OF THE MANOR OF OSEA
You have seen the subject of this memoir under very many changing circumstances, the central figure in one lurid scene after another, but there is a side to Frederick Charrington's life as strangely contrasted as possible to nearly all I have hitherto written.
My readers will not have accompanied me so far without realising that in Mr. Charrington is an unique personality. No one has done what he has done, and the originality of temperament has always been curiously aided and abetted by originality and strangeness of circumstance. I venture to think that this chapter illustrates not the least interesting of the great missioner's activities. Certainly he again appears against a background without parallel in English life to-day.
A few years ago—many people will remember it—the press of Great Britain was full of articles upon Osea Island.
Mr. Charrington, it was announced, had purchased this island, lock, stock, and barrel, and was about to develop it as a seaside and health resort, while at the same time carrying out the great temperance scheme.
The whole of the island was to be let or sold under express conditions that no license of any kind whatever would be permitted, or clubs for the sale of intoxicating drink.
Osea was to be, in short, a Temperance Island, and as such was to stand alone in the United Kingdom.