Mr. Asquith was reported the other day to have said that the Government was spoken of as having been accused of refusing so-called amendments to the Employers' Liability Bill in "peacock temper." The Daily News, in referring to this, suggests that "peacock temper" was a misprint for "pique, or temper." But surely this is not so. Mr. Asquith evidently has given in his adhesion to the new system of "colour adjectives." This opens great possibilities to the future. Radicals will denounce the "scarlet scandals of the purple-clad peers." Tories will wax eloquent on "the pink miasma of revolutionary Radicalism." No one will know what it all means, but that is part of the programme. Even if this colour scheme will not work, there is still a justification for the Asquithian phrase. Everybody has heard of a "foul slander." Why not a "peacock temper"?
A Case of Parallelism.
(Extracts from the Report of a recent Conference.)
"Dr. Stanley Boyd advocated the use of milk and lentil soup."
"Mrs. Stanley Boyd thought that all such novels as The Heavenly Twins, The Manxman, and The Wages of Sin, should be tabooed."
Sir Peter.—A well-written letter in the Times last week puts what maybe called "The Hard Case of Sir Peter Edlin"—and, indeed, he must be pretty well case-hardened at the Middlesex Sessions by this time—clearly and forcibly before the public. Sir Peter Edlin, it seems, has been doing treble the amount of work for a two-third's salary. This should be righted, and the Judge at the Middlesex Sessions should be independent of the would-be ubiquitous L. C. C. Such is the opinion of this Correspondent to the Times, and it is doubtless the opinion of a fair and just majority. As Joseph Surface observes in The School for Scandal, "Well, it will give Sir Peter great satisfaction to hear this."
Only Natural.—A shareholder at a recent company meeting complained, with some amount of feeling, that he found it next to impossible to obtain a "good penny bun." Can it be that so many people have "taken the bun" that there are none left? [211]