ith a light, firm hand, that was the admiration
and despair of the other side. Mr. Marjoribanks has, up to this present
time of writing, maintained the highest standard of success in Whipping.

[Sidenote: MR. MARJORIBANKS.]

With a Ministerial majority standing at a maximum of forty, it is of the
utmost importance to the Government that there shall be no sign of
falling off. If the forty were diminished even by a unit, a storm of
cheering would rise from the Opposition Benches, and Ministerialists
would be correspondingly depressed. With the exception named, due to
circumstances entirely beyond the Whip's control, Mr. Marjoribanks has
in all divisions, big or small, mustered his maximum majority of forty,
and has usually exceeded it.

That means not only unfailing assiduity and admirable business
management, but personal popularity on the part of the Whip. Aside from
party considerations, no Liberal would like to "disoblige Marjoribanks,"
who is as popular with the Irish contingent as he is with the main body
of the British members. He is fortunate in his colleagues--

Mr. Ellis, Mr. Spencer, Mr. Causton, and Mr. McArthur. The Whip's
department has not always been a strong feature in a Liberal
Administration. In the present Government it is one of the strongest.

[Illustration: MR. MARJORIBANKS.]

Why Mr. Marjoribanks should be content to serve as Whip is one of the
mysteries that surround the situation. He does not want a peerage, since
that will come to him in the ordinary course of nature. He is one of the
personages in political life who excite the sympathy of Lord Rosebery,
inasmuch as he must be a peer _malgre lui_. He served a long
apprenticeship when the office of Whip was more than usually thankless,
his party being in opposition. When Mr. Gladstone's Ministry was formed,
it was assumed, as a matter of course, that Mr. Marjoribanks would have
found for him office in other department than that of the Whip. But Mr.
Gladstone, very shrewdly from the Leader's point of view, felt that no
one would be more useful to the party in the office vacated by Mr.
Arnold Morley than Mr. Marjoribanks. Mr. Marjoribanks, naturally
disposed to think last of his own interests and inclinations, did not
openly demur.

[Sidenote: ALL-NIGHT SITTINGS.]

The Whip's post, though hard enough, is much lightened by adoption of
the twelve o'clock rule. Time was, at no distant date, when for some
months in the Session Whips were accus