eluctantly do they go home. Following their
example, we exchange the noisy and heated house for the chill and silent
night. Yet, as we go, we cannot help observing, how generally
well-behaved and patient the House has even been to unutterable bores.
It is seldom they put a man down, or are boisterous or rude. A man of no
party easily gets a hearing; but he cannot secure attention. The House
is polite, not cordial--civil, but not encouraging. Accordingly the
multitude, the second and third-rate men--that is, all except a dozen--do
not attempt to speak to the House at all, but to the gallery, and,
through the press, to their constituents. If the speeches were not
reported, they would, in most cases, be made shorter and better. For
instance, your own representative Smithers made a speech. The
weak-minded politicians of Rottenborough class Smithers as A 1; and when
he tells them what a fire-eater he is in the House, and what things he
says to government, they wonder Smithers has not been committed to the
Tower for high treason by the base and brutal myrmidons of power. Now,
what are the actual facts? While Smithers was speaking, the House very
still--and perhaps, with the exception of an understrapper of the
Treasury, enjoying a five minutes' snooze, or deep in a statistical
calculation, not a soul was on the government benches at all--nobody
listened to Smithers; yet, on went Smithers stuttering incoherently,
reading from his notes with fearful pauses between, screaming at the top
of his voice, sawing the air with his arms in the manner of the unhappy
Mr. Frederick Peel, amidst universal indifference, save when occasionally
a good-natured friend timidly called out, "Hear, hear." The Speaker,
perhaps, was chatting with an acquaintance about his next parliamentary
levee; if Smithers had stood on his head, I almost question whether any
one would have been aware of the fact; and Smithers sits down, as he
rises, without any particular mark of approval at all. Why, then, does
Smithers speak? Why, because the Press is there--to treasure up every
word--to note down every sentence--to let the British nation see what
Smithers said. This, of course, is a great temptation to Smithers to
speak when there is no absolute necessity that Smithers should open his
mouth at all. Yet this has its advantages--on the morrow honourable
gentlemen have the whole debate before them, coolly to peruse and study;
and if one grain of sense