Friday.—Another private Members' night, and, by consequence, another count out. Things kept going till a quarter to eight, but only with utmost difficulty. Members consented to stay in prospect of division on Albert Rollit's motion protesting against exemption of Government property from rating. But they would not longer linger. When Lubbock followed, with proposal of pleasant chat about London's share of imperial contribution to local purposes, the few remaining Members, vainly trying to look as if they'd be "back in ten minutes," walked out. House counted; only twenty-five present, and so home to dinner.
"Yes, yes," said Walter Long, left in charge of Front Opposition Bench, "but this won't prevent us on Monday, when Squire of Malwood proposes to take Tuesday and Friday mornings for public business, stubbornly resisting piratical incursion on the rights of private Members. Whatever we are, let us be logical."
Business done.—Ministerial defeat on Rollit's amendment averted by majority of one.
THE BATTLE OF EASTBOURNE.
Natis in usum lætitiæ rosis
Pugnare Eastbourni est.
Horace (slightly emended).
It is not the English nature, but the English climate that makes us take our pleasures sadly (if we do, which we don't). And it is not the fault of the English nature, but of the organisers, if our public pageants are usually, like our statues, more or less good-humoured burlesques of what they are meant to represent. Now Eastbourne has triumphantly shown that, in spite of chilling and heavy rain, England can rival the sunny South in the beauty and variety of a big procession of floral cars. And if Eastbourne can do this, why can it not be done elsewhere? "Organise, organise, organise," and let the hireling merrymaker be conspicuously absent. Your hireling will still wear his armour as if he were bearing the spolia opima of a burgled marine-store dealer. And the lady hireling, as a sea-nymph or a shepherdess, can never quite forget what she owes to her dignity as a respectable married woman. In the interests of the family exchequer, and in the way of business, she may consent to dally with allegory, but her heart is not in the mermaid's grot, nor do the spacious times of Great Elizabeth inspire her, beyond the Victorian circus-smile, the circus-smile which puts a girdle round about the face for forty minutes, or more if the procession be so long a-field. At the Eastbourne Battle of Flowers everyone lived up to his or her coach, carriage, wheel-barrow or cart, in a way which speaks volumes for the artistic sense of the South Saxons. The children, as children use, took the cake—after Mr. Edgar Bruce. They were there in great numbers and variety, from the little Titania in her fairy goat-chaise, o'er canopied with flowers and flying doves, to the very small skipper of the very realistic ship, who stood on the rainy deck with drawn sword and unswerving dignity for some two hours of constant and crowded parading. "Bravo, Burnaby," is the resultant cry of gratified spectators, and better weather next time. A better show it would be ungrateful to suggest.