ng so. No artificer at Reform, let
him be Conservative or Liberal, can make Middlesex or Lancashire
agricultural; but Wiltshire and Suffolk were to be preserved
inviolable to the plough,--and the apples of Devonshire were still
to have their sway. Every town in the three kingdoms with a certain
population was to have two members. But here there was much room
for cavil,--as all men knew would be the case. Who shall say what
is a town, or where shall be its limits? Bits of counties might be
borrowed, so as to lessen the Conservatism of the county without
endangering the Liberalism of the borough. And then there were the
boroughs with one member,--and then the groups of little boroughs.
In the discussion of any such arrangement how easy is the picking
of holes; how impossible the fabrication of a garment that shall be
impervious to such picking! Then again there was that great question
of the ballot. On that there was to be no mistake. Mr. Mildmay again
pledged himself to disappear from the Treasury bench should any
motion, clause, or resolution be carried by that House in favour of
the ballot. He spoke for three hours, and then left the carcass of
his bill to be fought for by the opposing armies.

No reader of these pages will desire that the speeches in the debate
should be even indicated. It soon became known that the Conservatives
would not divide the House against the second reading of the bill.
They declared, however, very plainly their intention of so altering
the clauses of the bill in committee,--or at least of attempting so
to do,--as to make the bill their bill, rather than the bill of their
opponents. To this Mr. Palliser replied that as long as nothing vital
was touched, the Government would only be too happy to oblige their
friends opposite. If anything vital were touched, the Government
could only fall back upon their friends on that side. And in this way
men were very civil to each other. But Mr. Turnbull, who opened the
debate on the Tuesday, thundered out an assurance to gods and men
that he would divide the House on the second reading of the bill
itself. He did not doubt but that there were many good men and true
to go with him into the lobby, but into the lobby he would go if he
had no more than a single friend to support him. And he warned the
Sovereign, and he warned the House, and he warned the people of
England, that the measure of Reform now proposed by a so-called
liberal Minister was a measure p