We are continually hearing of some individual or other who is remarkable for what is called an "Enlarged Benevolence." We wish Mr. Donovan would explain to us the meaning of this phrase, for though we sometimes hear of an enlargement of the heart, or of a newspaper having been "permanently enlarged," we are puzzled to understand how there can be an enlargement of an individual's benevolence.
THE JOKE OF THE SESSION.
One great cause of the heaviness of Parliamentary debates is the jokes with which they are interspersed, although these are not numerous. A speech may contain but a single joke; but that one joke, or attempt at joking, is such as to give a weight to the whole discourse which it would not derive from the arguments advanced in it. To quote a House of Commons' witticism is generally to quote Joe Miller, whom Honourable Gentlemen seem to cram in order to amuse, as they cram Adam Smith with a view to instruct one another. Their jokes, like a very different kind of things, Chancery decisions, are warranted by precedent. Liberals though some of them may be in earnest, they are all Tories in fun. Stare super antiques jocos is the motto of the extremest Radicals among them. The boldest innovators of the Manchester School show a veneration for antiquity as far as that goes. When the cellars of the House of Commons are searched for Guy Fawkes, it is wonderful that no explosive matter is found in them; no jokes in bottles, laid down many years ago, full of beeswing, so to speak; old and dry. The foregoing reflections were suggested by a report, in the Parliamentary intelligence, of the most brilliant joke that has for a long time, as a gentleman in the Brigade might say, shaken the walls of St. Stephen's. This highly successful sally was made in Committee on the Expenses of Elections' Bill by
"Mr. Elliott, the Member for Roxburghshire, who expressed anxiety to know, as the clauses prohibited persons playing, whether in future any of his constituents would be fined for playing the Scotch fiddle?"
If this pun is not very witty, at least it savours of the quality nearest allied to wit. Mr. Elliott's humorous question, moreover, is no unmeaning joke. It expresses a feeling probably very general among his constituents, who, we trust, will not, by any ungenerous legislation, be deprived of that relief, under circumstances of suffering, which they have always enjoyed under the ancient Scottish constitution.
PAPA TO HIS HEIR.
A FAST MINOR.