Let them try to deceive him, why, bless you, he's been there,
And can track his way straight through a tangle of lies;
And, though some might grow grey at the things he has seen there,
He never, no never, gives way to surprise.
ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.
EXTRACTED FROM THE DIARY OF TOBY, M.P.
House of Lords, Monday, March 25.—Impossible to avoid noticing depression of the Markiss when he entered House to-night. At first thought feelings of a father had overcome him. Cranborne, immediately after eloquent and energetic attack in other House of Welsh Disestablishment Bill, was struck down by indisposition, reported to be measles. That all very well. Do not wish to suggest anything wrong; but coincidence at least remarkable. Measles, the Member for Sark tells me, can be conveyed in various apparently innoxious guises. In a controversy so acrid that George Osborne Morgan has been publicly accused of profligacy, men will, it is too obvious, go any lengths. At present there is nothing that can be called evidence to connect Cranborne's sudden indisposition with current controversy. But if this mysterious attack is followed by symptoms of croup, rickets, teething, or any other complaint usually associated with happy days in the nursery, the public will know what to think.
Happily it turned out that the depression of the Markiss had nothing to do with the condition of the heir of Hatfield. His sympathetic heart been touched by difficulties that environ a worthy class of men whom Lord Chancellor, conscious that Cobb's eye is upon him, has recently been making magistrates. "Excellent persons," says the Markiss; "self-made men. But unfortunately the process of self-manufacture does not include knowledge of the statutes at large." There is the Parish Councils Act, for example; one of those pieces of legislation with which a reckless Radical majority has embarrassed an ancient State. This law has to be administered by people unlearned in Acts of Parliament. They cannot take a step without having sixteen volumes of the statutes at large tucked under their arms. What the benevolent and thoughtful Markiss suggested was, that in all future legislation there shall be reprinted sections of Acts of Parliament referred to in text of Bill.
House listened with admiration to statesman who, his mind engrossed by imperial cares, could find time to think out schemes for easing the pathway of working-men magistrates, and assisting operation of Parish Councils Act. Only, somehow, there was left on minds of hearers a strong impression that working-men magistrates are a mistake, and the Parish Councils Act a public injury, of which the Government ought to be more than ordinarily ashamed.