THE CALL OF THE BLOOD.

Head Nurse (as last resort to baby who won't take his medicine). "BE BRAVE, DARLING! REMEMBER YOU ARE A TALBOT DE THRESPIGNY!"

BRITANNIA (to the new German Ambassador). "BARON, I HEAR YOU'RE IRRESISTIBLE?" BARON MARSCHALL. "MADAM, I HEAR THE SAME OF YOU."

The Portadown Unionist Club "in battle array" under Lord LONDONDERRY and Sir EDWARD CARSON. House of Commons, Monday, May 13. of dejection the days pass and resemble end of hour movement towards door -Under pressure PREMIER has set each other. commenced. ELLIS GRIFFITHS, unduly apart four sittings for debate on About to-day's experience there is impressed with solemnity of position, Second Reading of Welsh Disestablish- a certain irony that conveys a useful, did not succeed in stopping the flow. ment Bill. When House met to-day sure-to-be-disregarded lesson. Here When he made an end of speaking OLIVER RONALDSHAY asked for more. we are entered upon fresh campaign all pretence of interest in the matter A punishment that would most closely against property and the Church. The was abandoned. There were recurrent have fitted this suggestion of crime nation is supposed to be riven into moments when it seemed a count-out would have been compulsory attendance sections, seething whether with en- was inevitable. But talk rolled on till throughout the first day's sitting. The thusiasm or indignation. The Opposi-stroke of eleven o'clock mercifully noble and shrewd Lord, however, de- tion, after dying in the ditch in resisting dammed it. parted at close of earliest hour and Home Rule, are more Hibernico, pledged And all this while, in some secluded was seen no more steeped in study of to spill every remaining drop of their spot uncheered by dinner, Lord argument for and against Second Read- blood in defence of the Church in RONALDSHAY was wringing his hands, ing. Wales. On opening night of struggle lamenting the intolerable obstinacy of That hour after hour, between six they send to the front one of their reckless PRIME MINISTER Who declines and eleven o'clock, Benches should choicest champions. Promoters of the to add another day or two to course of have been more than half empty has Bill on their part put up the latest debate. in these times come to be a matter of Minister, a popular and capable man, course. CARLYLE, who did not love whose first important speech in new Parliaments, partly perhaps because, capacity commands friendly curiosity. had he been a member of one, others would also have insisted on talking, gleefully records a conversation in the National Assembly in 1789.

Business done.-Second Reading of Welsh Disestablishment Bill moved. Tuesday-PRINCE ARTHUR gave Reasonable to expect a thronged much-needed fillip to debate on DisChamber buzzing with excitement, establishment Bill by delivery of brilcheering the champions with applause liant speech opposing it. Arrangements or with not less inspiriting hostile for intervention were cut-and-dried like "It was," remarked a Member on interruption. What actually happened everything else that invests the affair his legs, "dull as this day's assembly." was far remote from realisation of this with depressing air of unreality. But "Pourquoi dater?" asked MIRABEAU. ardent fancy. There was moderately there was no competition for favourable When one writes about dulness in full attendance when F. E. SMITH rose points of hearing, no "sitting out" on the Commons there comes the reflection, to move rejection of Bill in speech Gangway steps, no moaning at the bar

of eager listeners. Just a fairly full wherein SMITH O'BRIEN, with myrmi- Thursday.-Evidence promptly forthaudience, at one in its welcome to dons of the law at his heels, vainly coming that Members not disposed to graceful actor temporarily returning to sought safety. look so lightly upon the Portadown familiar stage. From question addressed to CHIEF affair as ST. AUGUSTINE would have PRINCE ARTHUR in best form. House SECRETARY it seems that the Mem- them do. The MEMBER FOR SARK tells listened with delight to the old style bers of the Portadown Unionist Club me of a question addressed to the of pinking an opponent with flashing are already setting themselves in battle ATTORNEY-GENERAL, drafted at meetrapier as contrasted with bludgeoning array. Squads carrying deadly wooden ing in Committee Room upstairs of him with a blackthorn. ELLIS GRIFFITHS, guns are paraded. After certain man- influential group of Members. It runs in course of his speech, mentioned that oeuvres they marched past Colonel thus: "To ask the ATTORNEY-GENERAL the Archbishops of Canterbury enjoy FITZGERALD, J.P., and Major BLACKER, whether his attention has been called certain social precedence. J.P." The COLONEL, who had ap- to the fact that the sentence passed parently been studying literary style of upon Miss MALECKA was in accordance NAPOLEON'S proclamations to his army with the Russian Criminal Law of in Italy, Egypt and elsewhere, addressed 1903, which provides that anyone bethe assembled force in stirring speech, longing to a revolutionary organisation foretelling the state of terror into which aiming at the separation of parts of the

"True," said PRINCE ARTHUR. "But after all you are not taking £173,000 a year away from the poor because the ARCHBISHOP goes in to dinner before a Duke."

UNDER-SECRETARY hastily explained that he had touched upon this subject in answer to one of many interruptions to which he was subjected.

"If that be so," said PRINCE ARTHUR encouragingly, "I think the honourable gentleman ought to be grateful to the questioner, since he appears to have provided him with all the more important parts of his speech."

And then there was the canonisation of the HOME SECRETARY. PRINCE ARTHUR found in his speech on introducing Bill design to create organisation of a new Church.

"I suppose," he went on, regarding HOME SECRETARY with something of fatherly pride, "the Welsh Church of the future is to look back to the right honourable gentleman as its founder, and, as we talk of ST. AUGUSTINE and ST. COLUMBA, 50 posterity will talk of ST. MCKENNA."

HOME SECRETARY. blushed. ST. AUGUSTINE BIRRELL looked a trifle annoyed. Doubts whether

country from the Empire shall be subjected to a minimum penalty of exile for life, and a maximum of twenty years' penal servitude.

"And whether" (no Parliamentary question is complete without "and whether") "in view of declarations affecting the status of the Province of Ulster, made in this House and elsewhere by honourable and right honourable gentlemen, he will bring in a short Bill embodying in the criminal law of this country the provision enacted in Russia."

Business done.-Second Reading of Welsh Disestablishment Bill carried by 81 votes.

"ALL THE BEST OF BOTH."

ON the well-known principle that nothing is more infectious than matrimony, the recent union between The Daily News and The Morning Leader has set an example that is expected to be widely followed. The following very interesting announcements have not yet been issued to the public, but might appear at any moment:

(ST. AUGUSTINE BIRRELL and ST. REGINALD MCKENNA.) there is room on Treasury Bench for "English and Scotch" people would another Saint. The House rocked with fall when they learned that the armed hilarious laughter and, when PRINCE Portadown Unionist Club, banded toARTHUR made an end of speaking by gether to defend their rights, are deterdelivery of something nearer approach- mined "never to submit to be governed ing peroration than of late customary, by a Home Rule Parliament." Members went forth, leaving the place! CHIEF SECRETARY was called upon to solitude and J. EDWARDS. Business done.-Second night of Debate on Disestablishment Bill.

to explain "why no action has been taken against the persons responsible for this incitement to sedition and Wednesday. Some sensation created armed violence against the Crown." by disclosure of details of preparation ST. AUGUSTINE, after familiar Minisfor fighting in Ulster should Home Rule terial manner, tried to make light of Bill be carried. Hitherto been dis- affair. "Hypothetical rebellion," he position to regard threats of Ulster called it, not worth serious attention. Members as only their fun. Suddenly, All the same, House doesn't like look without word of warning, abyss opened of things.

on floor of House. Members found! Business done.-Here endeth the themselves staring at possibilities third lesson derivable from debate on promising to wipe out from its proud Second Reading of Welsh Disestab

(1) On and after Monday next, the two great London weekly papers, The Spectator and

The Looking-Glass, will be amalgamated under the composite title of Reflections.

Price 3d. every Saturday. Two papers in one, and all the best of both.

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