I'm blowed if I don't drop the reins and bolt off to the diggings.
EXHIBITION OF POLITICAL INDUSTRY.
The honourable and gallant Member for Lincoln has reason for complaining that there is no prospect of the outlay upon the New Houses of Parliament being finished. The outlay will not be finished before the Houses are—Victoria Tower and all; and when we see what progress is being made with the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, we cannot but think how desirable it is that those edifices, and, indeed, the whole Parliamentary concern should have been got up by a Houses of Parliament Company. If that had been the case, the edifices would not only have been long since lighted, ventilated, and decorated, but the thing would now be a paying property. Such it might easily have been rendered by making the galleries larger, and admitting the public at so much a head—say playhouse prices—which crowded audiences doubtless would be willing to give, in order to hear the spouting. Besides, the Members might have been required to pay for their seats, and the revelations that have taken place this session before the Election Committees afford sufficient assurance that they would have done that handsomely.
Whiskey above Proof.
We suppose that the principal objection of the Irish priesthood to the Archbishop of Dublin's Christian Evidences as a national school-book, is, that if the pupils were allowed to have the truth of Christianity proved to them, they would also want proof of everything else that their Reverences tell them to believe.
THE ETIQUETTE OF SMOKING.
Light your cigar first, and, after you have taken one or two whiffs, turn round, and inquire, most politely, "If smoking is disagreeable to any one present?"