a
division, but it was left to the discretion of the Speaker to decide
which side was in the majority. He would then order them to walk to the
other side of the House, and anyone remaining would of course be counted
with the opposite side. Old Sir Watkin Wynn, I believe, was determined
to vote against a certain Bill. He had been hunting all day, and rode up
to town in time to vote. Arriving in his hunting costume and muddy
boots, he took his seat tired out, and soon went fast asleep. The
division came on, and his party were ordered to go over to the other
side of the House. He slept in blissful ignorance, waking some time
afterwards to find to his horror that he had been counted with those in
favour of the Bill.

Mr. Gladstone remarked that it was curious that in the old days the
Whips could tell to a vote how a division would go. He recollected well,
in 1841, a vote of no confidence in Lord Melbourne was moved. The point
was going to be decided by one vote. I shall never forget the "Grand Old
Man's" graphic description of that vote. There was an old Member who was
known to be to all intents and purposes as dead as a door-nail. The
excitement was intense to know if that still breathing corpse could be
brought to vote. Mr. Gladstone, with other young Tory Members, stood
anxiously round the lobby door watching, and just at the critical moment
when the vote was to be taken the all but lifeless body was borne along
ignorant of all that was going around him, his vote was recorded, and
that one vote sealed the fate of a Ministry.

In Mr. Gladstone's opinion, American humour invariably consisted in
dealing with magnitudes. He preferred to hear American stories on this
side of the Atlantic. He never had been in America, and never intended
going. He expressed himself as apprehensive of the effect on the nervous
system of the vibration caused by the engines of a steamer travelling at
a high speed, but spoke with admiration of the rapid travelling at sea
performed by the Continental mail packets, saying that a few days
before, returning from the Continent, he had only just settled down to
read when he was told to disembark, for the steamer had reached Dover.

I overheard Mr. Gladstone asking the question: "Why is it that when we
get a good thing we do not stick to it?" I fully expected him to launch
into some huge political question, such as the "Unity of the Empire" or
"Universal Franchise." Instead of this, I was somewhat sur