As the audience dispersed, the gloomiest forebodings arose upon the subject of the next sitting.
THE ANIMALS.
The fifth—and, in some respects, or, as Mr. Balfour has put it, “in many ways,” the most important—meeting of the Cabinet Committee appointed to Inquire upon the Causes of our National Decline, and to suggest some Remedy Therefor, was held at Downing Street in the usual place: the little room on the first floor to the left of the door.
The window, sketches of which have already appeared in the illustrated papers, may be distinguished by the new and perfectly clean panes of glass replacing those broken during the recent alarm of Fire.
A large crowd began to assemble at two o’clock outside the premises wherein the tragedy was to take place, and it was with difficulty that a number of policemen in plain clothes, but shod in the regulation boots, kept a lane open through the anxious though good-natured populace.
Mr. Chamberlain was the first to arrive, accompanied by the Postmaster-General. They came on foot, faultlessly dressed and apparently in the highest good humour.
Shortly afterwards the Duke of Marlborough appeared in the lowest good humour; he was on horseback, and bore several very large volumes precariously under one arm. The crowd waited in vain for the other members of the Committee; they did not come.
Meanwhile it was explained to the Court within that the three members present constituted a quorum, and the sitting was opened by
Mr. Chamberlain rising and saying he would detain them but a very few moments. He pointed out that his opponents were perpetually harping sordidly upon the mere economic evils which might follow the introduction of Preferential Free Trade. To reply to these criticisms might have baffled a man of less determination; he could not ask volunteers to come forward and submit themselves to the test, and his—he supposed he must call him his honourable—friend had refused to lend the Boer Prisoners still (he was glad to say) in captivity. He had surmounted those difficulties. He would call a number of living animals upon whom the whole scheme, from the recent procedure in Parliament to the effect of cheap tobacco upon the stomach, had been tried. (To the Door-keeper.) Let loose the⸺
The proceedings were here interrupted by Counsel for the Cobden Club, who rose and said he had a “replevin et demurrer” to lay before the Court. He believed such action to be cognisable under the writ “de Hæretico Comburendo,” and submitted, in all respect, that it was indictable by the Chartered Secretary of the S.P.C.F.C.H.H.[1] before the Justices in Eyre or in Chambers.