side of the Orangemen in the streets of Belfast. He was
listened to for the most part in silence, until he tripped into an
unseemly remark about Mr. Gladstone, when the much-tried Liberals burst
into an angry protest.

[Sidenote: Mr. Arnold Forster.]

Very different was Mr. Arnold Forster. I must be pardoned if, as an
Irishman, I always see something genial and not wholly unlovely even in
the most violent Irish enemy. We all like Johnston of Ballykilbeg--most
of us rather like Colonel Saunderson, and Mr. Dunbar Barton is decidedly
popular. But this Arnold Forster--with his dry, self-complacent,
self-sufficient fanaticism--is intolerable and hateful. He never gets up
without making one angry. There is no man whose genius would entitle him
to half the arrogant self-conceit of this young member. Acrid, venomous,
rasping, he injures his own cause by the very excess of his gall and by
the exuberance of his pretension. He also saw that the riots would do no
good, and he hinted darkly of what he called "ordered resistance,"
whatever that means. But, on the whole, the advocates of the Orangemen
made a very poor show.

[Sidenote: Tory obstruction.]

The Tories thus early developed the policy of preventing the Government
passing any Bill--English or Irish--good or bad. Whenever a good English
Bill stood as the first order--a Bill which they did not dare to
oppose--they found some excuse for moving the adjournment of the House.
This is a privilege which was intended to be used very rarely, but in
the course of the present Session it has been very freely resorted
to--especially when it has afforded a chance of keeping off good
Government business. On Tuesday, April 25th, the excuse given was that
Mr. Bryce had been guilty of political partisanship in adding a batch of
Liberals to the Bench in Lancashire over the head of Lord Sefton--the
Tory or Unionist Lord-Lieutenant of the county. Mr. Legh, a young,
silent, and retiring Tory member, began the attack, and did so in a very
neat, well-worded, and pretty little speech. Mr. Hanbury--who is making
his fame as a champion obstructive--followed this up, and Mr. Curzon
addressed the House in his superior style. Mr. Bryce was able to blow to
pieces the fabric of attack which had been so laboriously erected
against him by stating a few facts, of which these may be given as a
fair specimen. When Mr. Bryce came into office, of the borough
magistrates in Lancashire 507 were Unionists and