The Earl of Elgin is the descendant of The Bruce.  Their family vault is in Dunfermline Abbey, where his great ancestor lies under the Abbey bell.  It has been noted how Secretary Stanton selected General Grant as the one man in the party who could not possibly be the commander.  One would be very apt to make a similar mistake about the Earl.  When the Scottish Universities were to be reformed the Earl was second on the committee.  When the Conservative Government formed its Committee upon the Boer War, the Earl, a Liberal, was appointed chairman.  When the decision of the House of Lords brought dire confusion upon the United Free Church of Scotland, Lord Elgin was called upon as the Chairman of Committee to settle the matter.  Parliament embodied his report in a bill, and again he was placed at the head to apply it.  When trustees for the Universities of Scotland Fund were to be selected, I told Prime Minister Balfour I thought the Earl of Elgin as a Dunfermline magnate could be induced to take the chairmanship.  He said I could not get a better man in Great Britain.  So it has proved.  John Morley said to me one day afterwards, but before he had, as a member of the Dunfermline Trust, experience of the chairman: 

“I used to think Elgin about the most problematical public man in high position I had ever met, but I now know him one of the ablest.  Deeds, not words; judgment, not talk.”

Such the descendant of The Bruce to-day, the embodiment of modest worth and wisdom combined.

Once started upon a Freedom-getting career, there seemed no end to these honors.[65] With headquarters in London in 1906, I received six Freedoms in six consecutive days, and two the week following, going out by morning train and returning in the evening.  It might be thought that the ceremony would become monotonous, but this was not so, the conditions being different in each case.  I met remarkable men in the mayors and provosts and the leading citizens connected with municipal affairs, and each community had its own individual stamp and its problems, successes, and failures.  There was generally one greatly desired improvement overshadowing all other questions engrossing the attention of the people.  Each was a little world in itself.  The City Council is a Cabinet in miniature and the Mayor the Prime Minister.  Domestic politics keep the people agog.  Foreign relations are not wanting.  There are inter-city questions with neighboring communities, joint water or gas or electrical undertakings of mighty import, conferences deciding for or against alliances or separations.

[Footnote 65:  Mr. Carnegie had received no less than fifty-four Freedoms of cities in Great Britain and Ireland.  This was a record—­Mr. Gladstone coming second with seventeen.]