Under the existing Rules this scene, if it had
ever opened, would have been promptly blotted out. The closure would
have been moved, probably a division taken, and the business of the
evening would have gone forward. There was no closure in those days, and
Mr. Gladstone, after hurried consultation with Sir Erskine May, hastily
moved that Mr. O'Donnell be not heard.

A shout of savage exultation rising from every bench, save those on
which the Irish members sat, hailed a stroke that promised to deliver
the House from the thraldom of Mr. O'Donnell at the very moment when its
chains had taken a final twist. In ordinary circumstances this
resolution would have played the part of the as yet unconsecrated
closure. A division would have followed, the motion carried by an
overwhelming majority, and Mr. O'Donnell would have been temporarily
shut up.

But those were not ordinary times. The Fourth Party was in the prime of
its vigour. Lord Randolph Churchill's quick eye discovered an opening
for irritating Mr. Gladstone and damaging the Government by making what
should have been a business night one long turmoil. Mr. Parnell, whilst
disclaiming any personal sympathy with Mr. O'Donnell, moved the
adjournment of the debate, and poor, placid Sir Stafford Northcote,
egged on by the young bloods below the gangway, raised various points of
order. Finally, at eight o'clock, the House dividing on Mr. Parnell's
amendment, Sir Stafford Northcote voted with the Irish members, leading
a hundred men of the Party of Law and Order into the same lobby.

[Illustration: STIRRING UP SIR STAFFORD.]

Hour after hour the riot continued. At one time blameless Sir William
Harcourt, then Home Secretary, appearing at the table, a Conservative
member, amid tumultuous shouts, moved that he be not heard. When members
grew tired of shouting at each other they divided on fresh motions for
the adjournment, and it was not till one o'clock on the following
morning that Mr. O'Donnell, grateful for a pleasant evening, was good
enough to undertake that before he recurred to the question he would
give due notice, so that the Speaker might exercise his discretion in
revising its terms. At five minutes past one in the morning, after a
wrangle full eight hours long, the Speaker, with a pretty assumption of
nothing particular having happened, called on the next question on the
paper, which was Number 24.

All this might happen again on any night of this month save f