As for MR. TOULMIN SMITH, can't say I knows him-- But as you talks so werry like a gem'man, Perhaps you're a goin' in 'ansome style to stand a Shillin' a mile, Sir?
I give a shilling? I will see thee hanged first-- Sixpence a mile--or drive me straight to Bow Street-- Idle, ill-mannered, dissipated, dirty, Insolent rascal!
Members of the House of Commons, being in the Library, or elsewhere about the House, have to run for it in order to be present at divisions, and are sometimes too late. Lightness of heels (as well as of principle) appears to be a quality necessary to a representative of the British people. An election contest might be an actual footrace. Why not? The candidate that is able to outrun his opponent is at least as fit and proper a man to represent a constituency, as he is who can outbribe him. However this may be, we expect soon to see some such arrangements as the following among the Parliamentary notices:--
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY will run JOSEPH HUME, or any other Member, on the India question; or what not.
FREDERICK LUCAS, the Scarlet Runner, will match himself with PHINN, the Bath Brick, to run any length upon the Nunneries' Bill; or as much farther as the POPE chooses.
COLONEL SIBTHORPE will run any Member of HER MAJESTY'S Government (in which he has no confidence) at any time, on any question.
We shall also have SIR J. T. TYRRELL, the Farmer's Boy, challenging LORD JOHN RUSSELL, the Bedford Pet, to a trial of speed; the ATTORNEY-GENERAL will be invited to a similar match by SIR F. THESIGER; MR. BRIGHT will be proposing to hop LORD PALMERSTON; and perhaps MR. BENJAMIN DISRAELI will want to jump MR. GLADSTONE in a budget.
To judge from the smoke in which the investigation of the Dockyard abuses has ended, it would seem that the late Government played their cards in the knowledge that knaves were trumps.
THE EAST INDIA HOUSE.--It has been said of the East India House, that "it is an establishment which, in patronage, and other delicate little matters, generally goes 'the whole HOGG.'"
[Illustration: DELIGHT OF THE GROUSE AT THE PROSPECT OF A LATE SESSION.]
The Irish constituencies being now completely in the hands of their spiritual advisers, it is contemplated that henceforth the Speaker's writ for a new election in Ireland shall be directed to the priests of the vacant locality. The Reverend gentlemen are to meet (whiskey toddy and tobacco to be charged to the county), and their endorsement of their tool's name on the back of the writ, without any other form of election, is to save all the riot and bloodshed which they now feel it their duty to their Church and their consciences to cause, if a layman, Catholic or Protestant, ventures to present himself to the electors without priestly sanction. Anything for peace and quietness.