be presumed
to have purchased his title, he would have created some effect. But the
admission that all his information on the subject was confidential cut
the ground from under his feet; and needless to say none of the Peers
whom he hypothetically accused of buying their coronets responded to his
appeal by standing forth in a white sheet and making open confession of
his crime.

[Illustration: THE FOUNT OF HONOUR AT WORK.

LORD CURZON CAN HARDLY BELIEVE IT.]

Lord SELBORNE was one of three heirs to peerages who a generation ago
banded themselves together to resist elevation to the House of Lords.
Another of them is Lord CURZON, who answered him to-night, and whose
contempt for the Chamber which he now adorns seems to have grown with
the years that he has spent in it. Reading between the lines of his
speech a cynic could only infer that the Upper House, as at present
constituted, is such a useless and superfluous assembly that it does not
much matter who gets into it or by what venal ladder he climbs.

The only peers who ventured to get to close quarters with the scandal
were Lord KNUTSFORD, who told a moving tale of how a potential baronet
diverted L25,000 from the London Hospital to a certain party fund, and
thereby achieved his purpose; and Lord SALISBURY, who declared from his
knowledge of Prime Ministers that they were sick of administering the
system of which Lord CURZON was so ostentatiously ignorant.

[Illustration: WINSTON'S GIFT TO HIS NEW PRIVATE SECRETARY, MR.
MACCALLUM SCOTT.]

Many reasons have been assigned for Mr. CHURCHILL'S reinclusion in the
Ministry, but I am inclined to think that the real one has only just
been discovered. Mr. MACCALLUM SCOTT is one of the most pertinacious
inquisitors of the Treasury Bench; he is also a whole-souled admirer of
the Member for DUNDEE, and has written a book in eulogy of his
achievements by sea and land. Mr. CHURCHILL has rewarded this devotion
by appointing Mr. SCOTT his private secretary, and, as it is contrary to
Parliamentary etiquette for a Member holding this position to
interrogate other Ministers, has thereby conferred a distinct benefit
upon his new colleagues. Mr. LLOYD GEORGE is now reported to be on the
look-out for other statesmen in whom Mr. HOGGE and Mr. PRINGLE repose a
similar trust, but so far without success; and it is thought that his
only chance is to make Mr. PRINGLE an Under-Secretary on condition that
he takes Mr. HOGGE as his _ame damn