Punch: Punch (82.1882)

304

PUNCH, OR, THE LONDON CHAEIVAEI.

[July 1, 1882

ESSENCE O F PARLIAMENT.

EXTRACTED FEOM

THE DIARY OF TOBY, M.P.

QUERY WEATHER AT WESTMIHSTER.

Tuesdav Afternoon, June 20.—Imposing entry of Lord Mayor of
Dublin. Arrived at Two o’Clock in a four-wheeler. Received in
Palace Yard by Inspector Denning- and picked detachment of A
Division. Immense sensation in crowd lining the Westminster Hall.
Mr. Dawson bowed gracefully to right and left, and swept onward.
A doorkeeper nearly slain by glance from Dawsonian orbs. Hapless
official thought personage in scarlet gown was a mere London Sheriff,
and when he would have passed the bar threw himself before him.

“Terrible moment,” Mr. Dawson told Richakd Poweb, at Lord
Mayor’s banquet, subsequently held in dining-room. “It is weU
known anybody who lays a hand on Mrs. Dawson must first step
over my dead body. That’s written in liansard ; but little did 1
think I should be so near entering the House of Commons over the
dead body of a doorkeeper. The caitiff drew hack just in time, and
I passed on leaving him scatheless.”

Delightful to see the Lord Mayor seated just below the Grangway
with the cloak folded around him.

“ Like the Mother of Grraechchy, bedad,” says The O’Kelly, eyeing
him with glance of' pardonable pride.

_ Underneath the robe tantalising glimpse of velvet tights. Round
his neck a gold chain, not the one a certain Lord Mayor of Dublin
wore on his famous visit to London ; but, Tkevelyan tells me, the
veritable “coUar of gold Malachi won from the proud invader.”
Always thought Malachi was a Hebrew, though of course Tbevelyan
knows, being not only a historian, but specially well up in Irish
matters. Besides Greneral Buknaby says we are the Lost Tribes, and
this may be a heirloom.

_ When the Lord Mayor spoke fresh glimpse caught of velvet
tights. A graceful waving to and fro of folds of scarlet gown, an
uplifted hand to point the moral, or an indignant motion of the leg
opened up vistas of velvet. Only when he satdownafter impassioned
harangue _was House entranced by unobstructed view of velvet tights,
silk stockings hiding legs that would have made Sim Tappertit blue
with envy, and silver buckles on shoes beside which Randolph’s are
eanoes_. On the whole a sight never to fade from memory. Pity
the painter’s peneil, or even the photographer’s lens, did not seize it
ere it fied. Wilfb.id Lawson, a strict economist, teUs me he means
to move on the Yote for Houses of Parliament an additional sum of
£1000 for picture of “ The Lord Mayor of Dublin Delivering a Peti-
tion of Corporation to House of Commons, 20th June, 1882.” Make
a capital fresco for the vacant space in Octagon HaU, next St. George
and the JDragon. Business done.—Autumn Session foreshadowed.

Tuesday Night.—Mr. Love Jones Pabby made his maiden speeclv
Inspiration came upon him quite suddenly. Crime Bill in Committee-
Question of omitting fowling-pieces from seizable arms. Fowling-
pieces suggest seed potatoes to Colonel Nolan. From seed potatoes
to rooks natural transition. Colonel great on rooks.

“Members may laugh,” he says, glaring round. the House as if
he woxUd like to treat_ it to a whifi of gunshot, “but there are not
more than four or five questions more important in Ireland.”
Whereat a ribald House laughs again.

Then Love Jones Pabky rises and slowly getting House in focus

discourses on rooks; a Uttle angrily at first. Temper rufiled by
Colonel Nolan’s reckless handling of subject. On the whole Love
Jones Parby is more sorry than angry. He would be happy, he
says, to discuss rooks in private with the honourable and gallant
Grentleman. In the meantime, as a sort of first lesson, in whicb
House generally might share, Love Jones Pabby “ventures to teU
Colonel Nolan that young rooks make a remarkably good pie.”

Impossible to convey adequate impression of mingled shrewdness

and unetion with which
this axiomadvanced. Full
of the reminiscence of suc-
eulent departed rook pie.
Always wondered why we
should. be called upon in
Dod and elsewhere to Love
Jones Pabby. Clear;
enough now. An orator
of remarkable force, and a j
heart capable of being!
touched to profoundest!
depths at mention of Rook J
Pie. Quite a lovable man, j
Business done. ■— Crime |
Bill in Committee.

Wednesday Afternoon.
— Begin to wish I had
aecepted invitation of Lord i
Mayor of DubUn and gone 1
to the Banquet last night.
Seems to have been a
convivial affair. A little |
difficulty after the first j
Division, snatched ' just !
after Nine o’Clock. Sixty
for the Government, thirty-
one for Land - Leaguers.
Some of the Lord Mayor’s
guests greatly astonished j
when Lyon Playfaib,
with emphatic “so,” de-
clared that ‘ ‘ the no’s j
have it.”

Gruests insisted they were in the majority of two.

Everybody cheerful at dinner except VV. H. O’Sullivan. His
genial countenance obscured by hopelessness of prospeet of reforming
the British Constitution, pacifying Ireland, and soothing the Con-
tinent, by passing his Spirits in Bond Bill. Conversation took
theological turn. Playful speculations as to where Mr. Biggar will
“ go to” when life’s weary task is accomplished.

“ We all know where O’Sullivan will go,” Dick Poweb said.

“ Where ? ” asked the Regenerator of the Human Race, critically
sipping his champagne in search of silent spirit.

“ The Grand Old Man,” as “ Paul Pry ” in
Ireland, visits Gaptain Moonlight after
Sunset. The Captain happens to he enter-
taining a few Friends, and, naturally
enough, looks out for himself.

Paul Pry. Oh, I beg pardon, I hope I don’t
intrude. lf you’ll allow me, I ’il call again
to-morrow morning, as soon after sunrise as
possibie, when your Friends have gone. Good
night!