Punch (82.1882)

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

[March 11, 1882.

112

ESSENCE O F PARLIAMENT.

EXTRACTED PROM

THE DIARY OE TOBY, M.P.

THE HOUSE FULL OF ORDERS ; OR, TURNING OYER A NEW LEAF.

Monday Night, Feh. 27.—Being detained in Downing Street for
private conference after the Members had left, was a little late
in getting down to the Honse. Thonght when I entered I ’d made
a mistake and come in from behind the Speaker’s chair. This
Session "W". E. Gr. obligingly insisted on my having a key of the door
behind the Speaker’s chair. Hadn’t nsed it to-day, yet here, on
my left, were crowded benches and uproarions cheering. As a rule,
Liberals don’t know how to cheer, and when yon hear a noise like
this, yon natnrally think it must be the Tories. I ’ll back Mr.
Aiderman Fowler, Sir Walter Barttelot and Mr. AVarton to a
cheering match with the combined Liberal Party on any orMnary
night.

This, it seems, is not an ordinary night; cheering terrific ancr well
sustained; Conservatives shnt up, abashed. Sir Staeeord Northcote
evidently frightened to death, and wishes Salisbury, who has raised
the whirlwind, wonld kindly come and ride upon it. A good many
Peers in the Grallery; bnt my Lord Salisbury has engagements
elsewhere.

In this dilemma Mr. Newdegate rises with deepening gloom and
unsurpassable melancholy in his voice. If the House wonld only
have listened to him—is it forty or fifty years since P—all wonld have
been well. He has been in the House now nearly a hundred years
but never heard or saw anything equal to this—never. Someone
reminds him that two days ago he was equally melancholy, and five
days previously had been in the same degree oppressed by the con-
sciousness of evil-doing. Mr. Newdegate only shakes his head
with solemn sadness and sits down. Brings out a scarlet pocket-
handkerchief; holds it despondingly in his right hand, and shakes
his head with growing depression as the conversation proceeds.
Sometimes varies this by crying ‘ ‘ Hear! llear ! ” Noonequite
knows what is the matter with him, but everybody respects his
grief.

Things get a little livelier on the Division. Sir Stafeord, seeing
how the enemy looked, wanted to draw back his gage of battle, but
| the Land-League wing had come outfor a fight, and they meant to
have it. Forced the Division, and English Country Grentlemen went
{ out in defence of the House of Lords shoulder to shoulder with Mr.
Biggar and Mr. Hbaly.

Passed the late Postmaster-Greneral on the way to the Division
Lobby.

“ Beware, my Lord,” said I, “ that evil communications do not
corrupt John Manners.”

“ Bad job, Tohy,” he answered ; “ but, as I have said before, you
Radicals really must spare, Oh spare, our old nobilitee.”

JBusiness done.—House of Lords spanked by 300 against 167.

Tuesday Evening.—House Counted Out at half-past eight. Passing
through the Lobby at thirty and a half minutes past eight, saw a
stranger standing by the doorway under the clock. Coat and hat
on, umbrella in han'd, just ready for a holt.

“ Pleasant ehange this, Tohy,” he said.

Thought I knew the voice. On inspection found it belonged to
Lord Richard Grosvenor. Perfectly astonishing the way he got
into the coat and hat, well inside of thirty seconds. Not so sur-
prising though, as the fact that as a rule he is content on most days
not to see coat and hat till two or three in the morning, having been
slaving like a coalheaver sinee the House met. Talk about your
ten-hours Bill, and your early closing movement. Let some of them
come and do a Whip’s work for a night. All work and small thanks.
If things go wrong you are blamed; if right, somebody else is^
credited.

Rather fancy if my father had been a Dook instead of respectable
bull-dog, I should have left this slavery to other people.

“ Don’t you find it a bore ? ” I asked Lord Richard, at two o’clock
one morning, when he had been at it since four o’clock on the
previous afternoon.

“Yes,” he said; “but it’s nothing like the other bore of the
Channel Tunnel.”

JBusiness done.—House agreed, after three hours’ debate, that at
eonvict cannot also sit in Parliament.

Thursday Night.—Most surprising place this H. of C. Here ’s the
Queen heen shot at, Bradlaugh re-elected, and the Constitution
otherwise in danger, owing to a little difficulty with the Lords.
Anrl yet the House nearly empty, the few present being half asleep.

“Ptome fiddling whilst Nero was burning nothing to this,” says
Sir Charles Forster, pausing in the search for his hat to glance
around the chamber.

Short stout gentleman on his legs drawing touching picture of the
condition of the Irish landlord, driven from home with a wallet om
his back, taking a steerage passage to America, and drinking the
water of affliction out of a tin pannikin.

“ Who is this moving orator?” I ask Sir Wilerid Lawson,
making believe I had an eyelash in my eye, whereas it was a tear of
sympathy.

“ Hush! ” said Sir Wilerid. “that’s Sir Harvey Duee. For
goodness sake don’t whistle, or Forster will take you up and drop'
you inKilmainham.”

I was in no humour for whistling, having indeed a rooted objec-
tion to the practice in other people. But I might have clone it
without danger. Wilfrid Lawson terribly inaccurate man. The
orator isn’t Harvey Duee, but Harvey Bruce.

Sorry I waited to hear Dickson, who followed. _ Comes from same
part of the country, and plainly tells House that in all the North of
Ireland isn’t a more rack-renting landlord than Sir Harvey. Begin
to wish I had that tear back. As the poet sings, “ Grive back the
tear that thou weepest.” Ask Mr. Shaw what a rack-renter means.
Explains it ’s a landlord who makes the tenant pay rent for every-
thing—even for his pipe-rack.

Harcourt in hot water to-night. Wish I ’d raoved for the Returm