Punch (80.1881)

March 26, 1881.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

135

ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

extracted from

THE DIARY OF TORY, M.P.

jStaff. Nortkcotc (Betting Man). "Beaten on Urqexcy, AVilliam ? "Why of course you expected it. Didn't you give me the

Straight Tip about the Odds yourself ! "

Monday Night, March 14.—Remarkable thing' how rugged sim-
plicity yields to temptation in polities. Impossible to imagine any
more guileless man than Mr. Dilwyn. Rather goes against him
that he should be a Railway Director. But his position at the Board
is quite unique. Sir Edward Watkin, who is also, I hear, a
Railway Director, teUs me very curious thing about Mr. Dilwyn.
He says, if it ever happens that the shareholders turn rusty and
want to know, you know, the Chairman, instead of making a long
statement in explanation, brings up Mr. Dilwyn, and places him on
a chair in front of the platform. All he has tojdo is to sit quiet;
shareholders look at him and know that all must be square.

Sir Edward adds, " The people look at Dilwyn and feel relieved."

Yery curious circumstance this. Man of wide information Sir
Edwabd j has traveUed a good deal in America, and seen many
Royal Princes off at Charing Cross.

Anyone looking at Mr. Dilwyn as he sits in the corner seat below
the gangway, can understand the impression he would make on an

excitable and suspicious body of shareholders. None but a man of
the strictest integrity could afford to wear the same suit of clothes
for twenty years. None but a man of unimpeachable rectitude could
cross his legs in the way Mr. Dilwyn does, or sit with head slightly
bent forward, and that watchful and wary look upon his face. Often
in times past has a Minister trembled when in Committee of Supply
he thought he was about to get a vote, and the delusion has been
broken by the sound of a harsh voice, and the discovery of a strange
yet familiar figure at the coiner of the gangway. Mr. Dilwyn is
probably the original \ young man from the country whom it _ was
impossible! to surmount. Just the sort of man with whom Minis-
terial blandishments would have no effect. Would not care to be
presented at Court, and the affrighted mind shrinks from contempla»»
tion of him with a sword between his legs at Speaker's Levee.

Yet here is Mr. Dilwyn to-night with a,blush on his expressive
countenance propounding questions to Mr. Gladstone, of which he
says he has given him private notice. They are intended to counter-