and a few other toilet necessaries. Hauling out a handful of papers from the bag, and finding them not exactly what he wanted, he turned around and, amid an awful silence, deliberately resumed the search. Of course, the first things that came to hand were the comb and brush.

Hastily thrusting them back among the documents he made another start with his speech. But the fresh batch of papers also led to nowhere in particular. Coming to a break in his argument he turned once more to the bag, fearfully conscious of the presence of the comb and brush. With increased deliberation he rooted round, and finally, under the impression that he had at last seized the papers he sought, he produced a pair of gray worsted stockings. These approached the Irish question from a quite unexpected avenue. The House roared with laughter. Mr. Delahunty, still failing in his endeavor to come across the missing note, took the miscellaneous articles out of the bag, spread them on the bench, and with his back turned to the Speaker prosecuted his search. When at last he found the desired sheet of paper he went on as if nothing had happened, the House listening with high good humor to a story that had neither beginning, middle, nor end, through which the comb and brush came and went, as Harlequin and Columbine purposelessly flit across the stage in the intervals of pantomine business.

Among other oddities who occur to the memory, emerging out of the now distant past, was Mr. Tom Connelly, who sat on the Conservative benches and stirred up his compatriots on the opposite side with the long pole of scornful insinuation or vitriolic vituperation. There was Mr. McCarthy Downing, faithful to the last to his old leader, Isaac Butt, growing nearer and nearer in facial resemblance to a plucked jackdaw, as Butt's fortunes faded and he found himself thrust aside by the more strenuous Parnell. There was Mr. Ronayne, one of the wittiest of Irishmen. There was Frank Hugh O'Donnell, with his pleasing habit of presenting himself after a big debate had been closed by the leaders on both sides, and insisting on continuing it indefinitely. There was Dr. O'Leary, a magniloquent monocule. He was the member Dizzy won over to vote with the government on a critical division by placing his hands on his shoulder and telling him with a sigh how in personal appearance he reminded him of his old friend Tom Moore. There was Captain Stackpool, with his

hands in his pockets and his reminiscences of Lord Palmerston. "Ah," he was accustomed to say sadly, shaking his head at recurrent difficulties, "things wouldn't be like this if old Pam was here!"

Biggest, best of all, there was Major O'Gorman. The Major was a man of great height and stupendous girth. His voice, when uplifted in oratorical effort, was like a peal of thunder. These personal peculiarities lent irresistible charm to a passage in his speech, delivered soon after he took his seat, on Mr. Newdigate's annual resolution affecting conventual institutions. The Major had prepared for the purposes of his argument a dramatic conversation between a high-born Mother Superior of a convent and one of the inspectors proposed to be constituted under Mr. Newdigate's bill. When the Major, with fine mimetic art, recited the nun's part of the conversation, put on a mincing manner and assumed soft speech appropriate to the character, the House went into a fit of laughter which prevented the conclusion of the dialogue being heard. After this speech, and up to his withdrawal from the scene, the Major was a prime favorite in the House of Commons, members crowding in to hear him as if word had gone round that Gladstone or Disraeli was up.

When Dr. Kenealy moved for a Royal Commission to enquire into the conduct of the judges in the Tichborne case, the figures were, against the motion 433, in its favor one. The Major was the minority. When asked why he should have parted from his friends on such an issue, he explained that it was a warm evening, he knew the "No" lobby would be crowded, so he thought he would stroll through the other one. The Major's humor was best when it was unconscious. But he had a ready wit, as was shown in his correspondence with an importunate constituent, who urged him to obtain for him a local postmastership. The Major declined, on the ground that he would never stoop to accept a favor from a Saxon government. The man persisted, concluding a third letter with the remark: "Shure, Major, ye've only to write a line and the thing would be done."

The Major thereupon replied: "Sir, I am in receipt of your letter of the fifth inst., in which you state I have only to write a line' in order that you should obtain the appointment you desire. I have, therefore, much pleasure in hereby appointing you Postmaster of Ballynahooly. I am, sir, your obedient servant, Purcell O'Gorman."

Another type of the now extinct Irish member was The O'Gorman Mahon. He was, when he came back to the House, returned for County Clare in 1879, one of the few living members who had sat in the unreformed Parliament. He was again member from 1847 to 1852, returning to the old scene after an interval of 27 years. In the meanwhile he had seen fighting both by land and sea. On one occasion, offended by a Conservative member opposite whom he suspected of sniggering at an Irish Nationalist member on his feet at the moment, The O'Gorman Mahon crossed the floor, handed his "cyard" to the offender, and went into the lobby ready to complete the preliminaries of a challenge.

So recently as 1884 Sir Patrick O'Brien, another richly endowed Irish member, went even further than that in the arrangements for a duel. In debate on a local Dublin bill Sir Pat, it being two o'clock in the morning, got a little mixed as to whether it was Mr. Wm. O'Brien or Mr. Harrington who had interrupted his observations with what he described as "a guffaw." At first he leaned towards conviction that it was Mr. Harrington, of whom he incidentally remarked that "the honorable member was carrying parcels for a wage of three and sixpence a week when I represented King's County in Parliament." After staring with blood-shot eye for some time at the little band of Parnellites opposite, Sir Pat accidentally got Mr. William O'Brien in focus, and convinced himself that it was he who was the offender. Several times, leaning forward, putting his hand to his mouth, he inquired across the House, in a stage whisper, whether Mr. O'Brien was "afraid"? No notice being taken, Sir Pat hurriedly left the House, looked up The O'Gorman Mahon, engaged him as a second, and, returning, informed Mr. O'Brien that everything was settled. All he had to do was to put his man in communication with the ancient warrior. Sir Pat waited in the lobby for an hour. Mr. O'Brien made no sign, and in the cooler atmosphere of the following day the bloodthirsty enterprise was abandoned.

There was in those days a serious-mannered Irish member named Blake (not to be confounded with the ex-Premier of Canada, sitting member for South Longford), who is remembered for a brief correspondence he read to the delighted House. It was introduced in a speech delivered in debate on the Irish Sunday Closing Bill. Mr. Blake had, he confidentially informed the

House, an uncle who regularly took six tumblers of whiskey toddy daily. This troubled him, and after much thought he resolved. to write and remonstrate with his relative. The following was the letter:

"MY DEAR UNCLE: I write to say how pleased I should be if you could see your way to giving up your six glasses of whiskey a day. I am sure you would find many advantages in doing so, the greatest of which would be that, as I am persuaded, it would be the means of lengthening your days."

The Uncle replied:

"MY DEAR NEPHEW : I am much obliged to you for your dutiful letter. I was so much struck by what you said, and, in particular, by your kind wish to lengthen my days, that last Friday I gave up the whiskey. I believe you are right, my boy, as to my days being lengthened, for, bedad ! it was the longest day I ever remember."

Another hero of Coercion days, now forgotten by the multitude, was Mr. Pyne, member for West Waterford. In the winter of 1887 a warrant for his arrest was issued under the Crimes Act. Mr. Pyne, who farmed a large property in Waterford belonging to the Duke of Devonshire, shut himself up in his Irish home, Lisfarney Castle. He had the trenches filled with water, the drawbridge up, took in supplies by a window in the battlements and thus lived for months, occasionally indulging in friendly conversation with the police wandering about below with the warrant for his arrest in their pockets. He came to town for the opening of the session of 1888 and was arrested as he passed down the steps at Westminster Bridge to enter Palace Yard.

The originality of his mind was further indicated upon his watch. On its dial he had roughly engraved the legend: "Pay no rent." Whenever in troubled times any of his neighbors came to him for advice as to what they should do in presence of a demand for rent, Mr. Pyne solemnly shook his head. "I cannot," he said, "express my views on the subject, for Mr. Balfour says they are illegal. But I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll show you what time of day it is," and, holding out his watch, the perturbed tenant read upon it the admonitory legend, "Pay no rent."

This was the comic side of Mr. Pyne's Parliamentary and political career. Tragedy swooped down just two years after his arrest in Palace Yard. Sailing from Holyhead on a return visit to Ireland the member for Waterford was nowhere to be found

when the vessel reached Kingstown. In the darkness of the night he had fallen or been swept overboard, and like ships posted up at Lloyds has never since been heard of.

A contributory reason to the disappearance from the Parliamentary scene of the Irish member of whom I have rapidly sketched a few types, is the improved machinery of public business. In the days when these heroes flourished the House of Commons was absolutely at the command of a single member. The less he was bound by the trammels of decent debate, the more abject was the submission of the House. The extremes to which obstruction was carried in the ten years following on 1875 drove the House, most unwilling to move in this direction, to reform its ancient standing orders. The adoption of the closure, violently resented as an infringement of the privilege of free speech, has done much to vindicate the freedom of the House from the tyranny of the individual. Another reform that by minimizing the recurrence of late sittings struck at the root of possible disorder, was the adoption of the rule whereby business is automatically interrupted at the stroke of midnight. That, while seeming to limit opportunity for accomplishing work, has actually increased it.

The invention of grand committees is another modern innovation whose usefulness in furthering public business is sorely handicapped by the tendency of members to insist, when a bill comes before the House on the report stage, upon debating over again the questions thrashed out in grand committee. Nevertheless, grand committees materially contribute to the furtherance of work achieved throughout a session. The pressure of that work has vastly increased since the Queen first took her place on the Throne in the House of Lords. It is ever increasing, and can be grappled with to-day only by the adoption of a scheme of double shifts, patriotic members, slaving through daytime in select committees or grand committees, coming up more or less fresh in the late afternoon to begin a new task with the Speaker in the chair.

I have not attempted in the limits of opportunity at my disposal to trace the course of the great political questions that have been dealt with in the Parliaments that have succeeded each other during the last sixty years. I have been content with the lighter task of touching upon episodes and characters, small things