'Some of his finest things are lost in the reports. For example, "Swill the whisky through the streets till the very curs lie prostrate," and this, which, however, in a weakened form, survives in Mr. Lucy's Diary: "Some men who call themselves my constituents tell me that if I oppose this Bill I shall never sit again. Well, what then?" (This in a stentorian voice that nearly blew the windows out.) "Athens ostracized Aristides."
'After midnight a postponed Bill is fixed for the next sitting by the words "This day." O'Gorman was opposing and watching such a Bill, and shouted out: "What day?" "This day" was solemnly repeated. Then the puzzled Major, looking at the clock, and bowing to the chair, said: "Mr. Speaker, is it yesterday or is it to-morrow?" I never heard a question more difficult of reply under the circumstances of the case.
The best Irish bull uttered within his own hearing was, says Dilke, Sir
Patrick O'Brien's defence of Mr. Gladstone addressed to the Irish
Nationalists: "The right honourable gentleman has done much for our common
country. He has broken down the bridges that divided us."
III.
When the Session was ended, Sir Charles, according to his custom, set out on travel, following a scheme mapped out far ahead. In December, 1874, he had written to Miss Kate Field, correspondent of the New York Tribune and a friend of Sir Charles and of his first wife, that he would be in America in the following September on a journey round the world, and there accordingly he appeared—'on my way to Japan, China, Java, Singapore, and the Straits of Malacca—taking with me as travelling companion my scheme for a history of the nineteenth century,' a work projected on such ample lines that a note of this year sets down 1899 as the probable date of completion, "if I live so long."
The record of this journey is to be found in the additional chapters to Greater Britain, first issued in 1876 as magazine articles, and added to the eighth edition in 1885. He saw Japan before the Satsuma rebellion had broken out in a last attempt to restore the old feudal regime, and he stayed in the Tartar General's yamen at Canton, where at gun-fire he and the other Europeans in the same house were shut up within barred gates, only representatives of the white race among 2,000,000 Chinese. As for the Japanese, he wrote:
"I'm in love with this country and people…. The theatre is where I spend all my time…. There alone can you now see the soldiers in masks, ferocious and hairy, with the chain-armour and javelins of fifteen years ago. [Footnote: This was written in 1875.] There alone can you now see the procession of daimios accompanied by two-sworded Samurai, there alone have the true old Japan of the times before this cursed 'New Reform Government' arose."
'My stay at Tokio was at the same moment as that of Shimadzu Suboro, the old Satsuma Chief, uncle and adoptive father to the Satsuma Princes, and last constitutional light of the Feudal party. The "great Marshal" Saigo was commanding in chief the forces, and was in the next year to head the Satsuma rebellion. The Corean Envoys—tall men, with wondrous stars in their hair—were at the capital also, and I met them often.'
The beauty of Java, where he stayed at the Governor's Palace at
Buitenzorg, charmed him.
His journey from the East was very rapid, and January, 1876, saw him back in England. He was in time to address his constituents as usual before the opening of Parliament.