Punch (80.1881)

February 19, 1881.] PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

75

ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

EXTRACTED FROM

THE DIARY OF TOBY, M.P.

Monday Night, Feb. 7.—Have found a
new humorist. He turned up in the most
unexpected place—on the Tory side, and not
only on the Tory side, but amongst the
Ulster Tories! Name, MacNaghtejt ; county,
Antrim; species, dry.
When Mr. MacNaghten presented himself to the House, no one
for a moment expected the joy of this rare discovery. Everyone
knows it is not the Ulster Custom to make jokes, nor did Mr. Mac-
Naghten's appearance suggest the possibility of variation from
established usage. Not being personally known to the House, he
was taken for another of those members of the Clergy with whom
Ireland, always odd, has dowered the new Parliament. There was
no reason for this perhaps, except that he looked very grave, spoke
in a solemn voice, and had that disposition to conceal his shirt-front
which appears inseparable from Holy Orders. Mr. MacNaghten's
jokes will probably not tell very well in paper currency; they are
rather of I the kind that require the mint-mark of manner and voice.
Perhaps the greatest joke of all was the uncertainty that prevailed
whether he really knew he was funny, or whether he marvelled why
the House should, from time to time, break into roars of laughter.
Vf\<^ ^^^^I^A^U -c u-V '/^~\ ^*u » No smile played over the visage of the Member for Antrim, nor, in-

^ ^ deed, was there suggestion of any other emotion. If it had been

the wooden figurehead of a ship set up at the corner seat below the
gangway, there could not have been upon its features less of responsive flicker to the merriment of the House. The tone and
manner of Mr. MacNaghten's delivery are precisely akin to that of a Curate reading his sermon on a sultry Sunday afternoon. There
was the slow rise and fall, the nasal intonation, the mdrawing of breath in fitful hope of humanity, and the outbreathing in something
like a sigh of hopeless despair.

Yet both the matter and the style were far beyond the average Sunday afternoon sermon in quiet places. Mr. MacNaghten was
talking strong common sense, and, as often happens with men so gifted, his thoughts found expression in simple, well-turned