At six weeks' quod, and fourteen bob,
The lesson's hard to learn.
Too Much a Matter of Course.—Cruelty to Hares.
ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.
Extracted From the Diary of Toby, M.P.
House of Commons, Monday, March 24.—Prince Arthur explained in speech nearly two hours long the bearings of Irish Land Purchase Bill. In course of his exposition the happy accident by which civilised man is furnished with two coat-tails was strikingly illustrated. On the Treasury Bench, behind Prince Arthur, sat, on either hand, Old Morality and Jokim. Supposing the Prince had had only one coat-tail, differences might have arisen between his two right hon. friends; sure at some period of the prolonged speech to come into personal contact if both pulling at same rope. But the liberal sartorial arrangements which Arthur shared in common with less distinguished Members provided a coat-tail apiece; so when idea or suggestion occurred to him, Old Morality tugged at the right-hand one, and when Jokim had a happy thought he hauled away on the left.
As both their minds were seething with ideas, Arthur had a lively time of it, and complications of Bill grew in entanglement. Just as he was assuming, for the sake of argument, that an advance of 30 millions had been made under the Act for the Purchase of Land in Ireland, and that seventeen years was about the average value under Lord Ashbourne's Act, there was a sudden tug of the right coat-tail; Prince leaned over in that direction; Old Morality whispered in his ear.
"Exactly!" said the Prince; "I was just going to show that the instalment of 4 per cent. on the advance of 30 millions is £1,200,000 a year. Very well; suppose that in one year, though the hypothesis is utterly impossible, that not one single sixpence of annuity is paid. How would that be?" (Here the left coat-tail was observed to be violently agitated, and Arthur leaning over, Jokim half-rising, eagerly explained something.)