swept the country, catered to by jingoist newspapers such as the Daily Mail. Many of these newspapers were also involved in the charitable fundraising efforts to benefit the Reservists and their dependents. The Daily Mail proprietor, Alfred Harmsworth, publicised efforts to help soldiers and their families. This drew the attention of Rudyard Kipling, who produced "The Absent-Minded Beggar" on 16 October 1899 and sent the verses to Harmsworth on 22 October with a note that "they are at your service. ... turn [the proceeds] over to any one of the regularly ordained relief-funds, as a portion of your contribution. I don't want my name mixed up in the business except as it will help to get money. It's catchpenny verse and I want it to catch just as many pennies as it can. ... [p.s.] It isn't a thing I shall care to reprint; so there is no need of copyrighting it in America. If any one wants to sing it take care that the proceeds go to our men." It was first published in the Daily Mail on 31 October 1899 and was an immediate success. Maud Tree, the wife of actor-manager Herbert Beerbohm Tree, recited it at the Palace Theatre, every night before the show, for fourteen months, and other performers recited it at music halls and elsewhere, giving part of the profits to the fund. The manuscript itself was auctioned for £500, and a Special Edition de Luxe was issued. Meanwhile, by 25 October, Kipling was plotting with Harmsworth on how to maximise the fundraising from the poem. In addition to having it recited at entertainments, he suggested finding a composer to set it to a "common + catchy" tune. The country's premier composer, Sir Arthur Sullivan, was immediately asked to set the poem to music. Sullivan had written some 20 operas, including fourteen comic operas with W. S. Gilbert, and a large volume of songs, orchestral pieces and other music. Although he was in the middle of composing his next opera, The Rose of Persia (which was to be his last completed opera), Sullivan agreed. Both Kipling and Sullivan declined proffered fees for creating the song. Artist Richard Caton Woodville, within several days, provided an illustration, titled "A Gentleman in Kharki", showing a wounded but defiant British Tommy in battle. This illustration was included in "art editions" of the poem and song. In 1897, Sullivan had