nd renting, new and newfangled, fancy
franchises and those which no one fancied, franchises for boroughs
and franchises for counties, franchises single, dual, three-cornered,
and four-sided,--by various clauses to which the Committee of the
whole House had agreed after some score of divisions,--the matter
of the franchise had been settled. No doubt there was the House
of Lords, and there might yet be shipwreck. But it was generally
believed that the Lords would hardly look at the bill,--that they
would not even venture on an amendment. The Lords would only be too
happy to let the matter be settled by the Commons themselves. But
then, after the franchise, came redistribution. How sick of the
subject were all members of the Government, no one could tell who
did not see their weary faces. The whole House was sick, having been
whipped into various lobbies, night after night, during the heat of
the summer, for weeks past. Redistribution! Why should there be any
redistribution? They had got, or would get, a beautiful franchise.
Could they not see what that would do for them? Why redistribute
anything? But, alas, it was too late to go back to so blessed an idea
as that! Redistribution they must have. But there should be as little
redistribution as possible. Men were sick of it all, and would not be
exigeant. Something should be done for overgrown counties;--something
for new towns which had prospered in brick and mortar. It would
be easy to crush up a peccant borough or two,--a borough that had
been discovered in its sin. And a few boroughs now blessed with
two members might consent to be blessed only with one. Fifteen
small clauses might settle the redistribution, in spite of Mr.
Turnbull,--if only Mr. Daubeny would be good-natured.

Neither the weather, which was very hot, nor the tedium of the
session, which had been very great, nor the anxiety of Ministers,
which was very pressing, had any effect in impairing the energy
of Mr. Turnbull. He was as instant, as oratorical, as hostile, as
indignant about redistribution as he had been about the franchise. He
had been sure then, and he was sure now, that Ministers desired to
burke the question, to deceive the people, to produce a bill that
should be no bill. He brought out his clause,--and made Loughton
his instance. "Would the honourable gentleman who sat lowest on
the Treasury bench,--who at this moment was in sweet confidential
intercourse with the right honourable gentleman