The letter following shows Newman to be in failing health and under doctor's treatment:—
"Weston-super-Mare, "7th October, 1886.
"My dear Anna,
"… My brief London visit which ought to have come off is forbidden positively, and I doubt not wisely, by medical command, not because I am ill, but because I had formidable threatening of illness, like a black cloud which after all does not come down. The threat consisted in my left hand losing all sense and power. This is now the sixth day. On the third I regained power to button, though clumsily, and to use my fork. Of course I am ordered to use my brain as little as possible, and in future to change my habits. I must leave off all letters and other writing much earlier in the evening. But frequent short walks I hold salutary to my brain; and my feet have not failed me.
"… You ask what I think of the Bulgarian outrage…. In the present instance the one thing primarily to be desired, and eminently difficult to attain, was cohesion of the little Powers. As of old, Sparta and Athens could not coalesce, and therefore after weakening one another they ill- resisted Philip, and were overpowered by Alexander armed from Macedonia and Thrace, and under-propt by gold from Asia; so now the little States— Servia, Bulgaria, Roumania, Greece—each envied the other, perhaps was ready for hostility, but all looked up to Russia with more than fear.
"But this atrocious kidnapping of a reigning Prince has given just the external compression which was wanted to make the little States desire union, and the greater Powers to think that such union is for European benefit. Not only has it reconciled Servia and Bulgaria, late in actual war, but it has elicited public outcry in Roumania for federation with these two States. Whether Greece can lay aside her jealous enmity against Bulgaria is not yet clear. Her ambition is to acquire Macedonia and Constantinople … perhaps … Albania.
"… To me it seems a wonder that the Greek statesmen do not see that Constantinople is too critical a spot for the European Powers to yield up to any secondary State. If it is to be under European protection, Greece would find her power in Constantinople merely nominal….
"The brutality of the Czar not only drives the little Powers to desire union, but makes the great Powers ashamed of it, and it seems, though reluctantly, they will oppose him.
"This is the first time that a Hungarian statesman has initiated European movement. If in Europe they are forced to displease Russia, so much the more will they wish to keep Russia in better humour by not thwarting her projects in Armenia, which projects I believe to be just, philanthropic, and necessary under the circumstances; since the inability of the Sultan to rescue the Armenians from marauders has been proved, and no Power but Russia can do the needful work….
"It is to be feared that Germany cannot add any real strength to control Russia, while Russia knows that the insane vanity of French politicians is preparing a war of vengeance against Germany. Until the masses of the people have a practical constitutional plebiscite to veto war beforehand, it seems as though horrors which seem dead and obsolete must rise anew. Perhaps this is the lesson which the populations all have to learn. The earliest great triumph which the old plebeians of Rome won was the constitutional principle that wars could not be made without previous sanction of the popular assembly. England, alas! has not yet even demanded this obvious and just veto. The men whose trade is war, whose honours and wealth can only be won by war, will make it by hook or by crook, while their fatal and immoral trade is honoured.