The Minister who answers for India in the House of Commons cannot fairly be expected to contribute to the hilarity of its proceedings. Yet occasionally Sir John Gorst, more particularly at question-time, standing at the table with almost funereal aspect, drops a parenthetical remark that convulses the House with laughter. Lord Randolph Churchill, since he has taken to racing, has assumed a gravity of manner which militates against repetition of his old successes in setting the table in a roar.
"AN IMPASSIONED ORATORICAL FIST."
But the gloom under which he has enveloped himself is, like that which just now obscures the sunlight of laughter over the House generally, only a temporary condition. The present House has accidentally run into a groove of gloom, which will probably outlast its existence. But there is no reason to believe that the decay of humour noted will be permanent. There is no assembly in the world so pathetically eager to be amused as is the House of Commons. It sits and listens entranced to bursts of sustained argument. It follows with keen intellectual delight the course of subtle argument. It burns with fierce indignation at a story of wrong-doing. It flashes with generous impulse at an invitation to do right. But it likes, above all things, to be made to laugh. In its despair of worthier efforts, almost anything will do. An agitated orator rounding off his peroration by sitting down on his hat; a glass of water upset; or, primest joke of all, an impassioned oratorical fist brought down with resonant thud on the hat of a listener sitting attentive on the bench below—these are trivial, familiar accidents that never fail to bring down the House.
"A PRIME FAVOURITE."
So persistently eager is the House to be amused that, failing the gift of beneficent nature, it will, as in the case of Mr. W. H. Smith, invent a humorous aspect of a man, and laugh at its own creation. There are many cases where a man has commenced his Parliamentary career amidst evidences not only of personal disfavour, but of almost malignant animosity, and has finished by finding his interposition in debate hailed by hilarious cheering. Such a case was that of the late Mr. Biggar, who for fully ten years of his Parliamentary career was an object of unbridled execration. He lived to find himself almost a prime favourite in the House, a man who, when he had not got further in his speech than to ejaculate "Mr. Speaker, sir," found himself the focus of a circle of beaming faces, keenly anticipatory of fun. Mr. Biggar in the sessions of 1886-9 was the same member for Cavan who, in the Parliament of 1874, was a constant mark of contumely, and even of personal hatred. The House had grown used to him, and had gradually built up round his name and personality an ideal of eccentric humour. But the creative power was with the audience—a priceless quality that remains with it even in these dull times, and though temporarily subdued, will presently have its day again.
The Snowstorm.
From the Russian of Alexander Pushkin.