Business done.—Address agreed to.
Tuesday.—Sark, whose knowledge of Shakspeare is extensive and peculiar, goes about humming:—
Ban, ban Caliban.
Got new House Commons;
Get new Chairman.
This accomplished to-night in simplest fashion. Two hours discussion of Limerick's flash of humour in having elected to represent it in Parliament a gentleman languishing in one of Her Majesty's prisons. This disposed of, House went into Committee of Supply. But as yet we have no Chairman. Mellor's unrequited labours closed with life of last Parliament. Sark always says justice never done to Mellor.
"A painstaking, upright, courteous gentleman," he testifies. "Much too good for obstruction's daily food in Chair of Committees. If he had a fault tending to incapacitate him for Chair, it was the extreme geniality of a nature that made him shrink from giving pain. He came into office at an epoch of exceptional difficulty. Lyon Playfair had bad time when he was hampered by well-organised, ruthless obstruction led by Parnell. Obstruction to the Home-Rule Bill throughout first session of Mellor's chairmanship not less ably led, for Joe, not yet come to Imperial estate, was much to the fore. It was certainly not less ruthless; numerically was in treble force. To obfusticate the Chairman was easiest, most effective way of delaying progress of Bill through Committee; Mellor suffered accordingly. The order of things should have been reversed. Mellor should come to Chair to-day. Lowther should have had his job in Session of 1893. James W. is endowed in marked degree with the quality of phlegm invaluable to Chairman in troublous times. What worried sensitive nature of Mellor would have flurried him no more than bucket of water cast over a duck's back."
"I was made a corporal just in time," said Private Hanbury, musing over recent turns in wheel of fortune. "With James W. in the Chair, I would rather have charge of the Estimates than be engaged in obstructing their passage."
"John William" (M-cl-re) in unwonted state of agitation.
Hermon Hodge, after enjoying the fresh air of the country for three years, comes back to House and loftily complains of the atmosphere. "Is the first Commissioner of Works aware," he inquired, "that in the early part of the afternoon there was a most horrible smell of drains at the bar of the House?"