BAILIE JAMES SHAW MAXWELL

    BORN near the Saltmarket in the later fifties, Bailie Shaw Maxwell has filled many parts in his time. In his youth, it is whispered, he wrote an epic, which remains unpublished, and at the present hour the "Lament for Captain Paton" is recognised as peculiarly his property on after-dinner occasions in the city. He has been a lecturer and a journalist, was one of the first in Glasgow to adopt the doctrines of Henry George, has headed demonstrations of the unemployed on Tower Hill, and was first national secretary to the Independent Labour Party. He has twice endeavoured to enter Parliament, contesting Blackfriars and Hutchesontown Division in 1885 and in 1895. It was largely through his efforts that Glasgow adopted the Free Libraries Act, and he was the moving spirit of the Sunday Society which brought some notable lecturers to the city, and ultimately succeeded in having the picture galleries and museums opened on the Day of Rest. He was, in 1896, one of the first of the "stalwarts" and Socialists to gain admission to the Town Council, although one might suppose all the difference in the world between his immaculate satin hat and the rough cloth cap of Mr. Keir Hardie. In 1908 he succeeded Mr. R. M. Mitchell as convener of the Parks Committee. In business life he is a printer.

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