BAD HABIT.
Sir Frederick Flood had a droll habit of which he could never effectually break himself (at least in Ireland.) Whenever a person at his back whispered or suggested any thing to him whilst he was speaking in public, without a moment's reflection, he always repeated the suggestion literatim. Sir Frederick was once making a long speech in the Irish Parliament, lauding the transcendent merits of the Wexford magistracy, on a motion for extending the criminal jurisdiction in that county, to keep down the disaffected. As he was closing a most turgid oration by declaring "that the said magistracy ought to receive some signal mark of the Lord Lieutenant's favour,"—John Egan, who was rather mellow, and sitting behind him, jocularly whispered, "and be whipped at the cart's tail."— "And be whipped at the cart's tail!" repeated Sir Frederick unconsciously, amidst peals of uncontrollable laughter.