ple at Delphi.
Nothing is positively assumed, but the public are told that when the
Queen's Speech is disclosed "it will probably contain promise of
legislation" on such a head, whilst it will "doubtless be found that Her
Majesty's Ministers have not been unmindful of" such another question.

This fashion was invented generations ago, either by the _Times_ or the
_Morning Chronicle_. The editor, having access to those gilded saloons
to which Lord Palmerston once made historic reference, or profiting by
personal acquaintance with a Minister, obtained more or less full
knowledge of what the Queen's Speech would contain. But he was bound in
honour to preserve his informant from possibly inconvenient consequences
of his garrulity, and so the oracular style was adopted. When other
papers, put on the track, obtained information in the same way they
adopted the same quaint practice, till now it has become deeply
ingrained in journalism. To-day, whilst there is no secret of the
sources of information very properly conveyed to the Press on the eve of
the Session, this same style of dealing with it, in which Mr. Wemmick
would have revelled, is sedulously observed.

At the beginning of this Session other than newspaper editors had been
made aware of the general legislative intentions of the Government.
Ministers speaking at various public meetings had openly announced that
their several departments were at the time engaged upon the preparation
of particular Bills, the main directions of which were plainly
indicated. It is true that details of the Home Rule Bill were lacking,
though two or three weeks in advance of its presentation one journal,
the _Speaker_, gave an exceedingly close summary of its clauses. But
that a Home Rule Bill was to be introduced, that it would take
precedence of all other measures, and that it would be thorough enough
to satisfy the Irish members, were commonplaces of information long
before the Speech was read in the House of Lords. It used to be
different. Within the range of recent memory, the publication of the
Queen's Speech, or at least a forecast in the morning papers, was the
first authoritative indication of the drift of legislation in the new
Session.

[Illustration: LORD PALMERSTON.]

Talking of this new departure with one of the oldest members of the
House, he tells me a delightful story, which I have never found
recalled in print, and it is too good to be buried in the pages of
_Hansard_.