countenance. Lord Her serving on zuela Boun dary Com mission. when Lord Herschell committed himself to what, if the schell died at speaker were not the Lord Chancellor, might be described Washington as this "whopper," a faint blush stole over his ingenuous in 1899 while That is, however, testimony probably the Venewarped by personal feeling and desire to save the credit of an amiable and upright man. There was certainly no tremor in the voice, no flinching in the attitude, as the Lord Chancellor, called upon to give his opinion as to the side on which, in the House of Lords, preponderance in favour of the Home Rule Bill declared itself, affirmed it was demonstrated on behalf of the second reading. There was nothing for it but to submit the question to the arbitrament of the division. With a burst of almost merry laughter, their lordships rose to their feet and began to pass out into the lobbies. The phrase is used in the plural for fuller accuracy. Watching the multitude slowly making its way down to the bar it seemed as if all were going into one lobby. In ordinary times the Whips stand by the wicket and "tell" members as they pass through. Although undesigned, there was not lacking something of dramatic effect in Lord Salisbury's proposition that this usual course should be departed from. Such a gathering would never be so marshalled till the night was far advanced. Better let them pour through into the outer hall, and there be counted. So it was arranged, and the memorable gathering of peers, spreading out the full breadth of the floor, pressed slowly onward towards the passage by the bar into the division lobby. With them went the Bishops, their white lawn looking like flecks of foam on the eddying current swirling outwards. Lord Kimberley, Lord Spencer, Lord Rosebery, and other Ministers seated on the front bench made early retreat, lest peradventure they should be swept away by the stream passing between the table and the Ministerial bench and carried off to vote against the Home Rule Bill. There was something pathetic in the position of their few followers seated on the benches behind. Some had risen to go out, but found their way blocked first by the Bishops, not yet dispersed, and beyond them the solid. phalanx of peers who had been standing before the Throne. If they had chanced to be going the other way, towards the bar, motion would have been easy enough. They might have drifted out with the tide. To go against the tide was quite another matter, and after vain effort they gave up the attempt, resuming their seats, and sitting patiently whilst the great majority swept past them. By-and-by the pressure was removed from the upper end of the Chamber, and the minority, fit, few, and forty-one, made haste to escape. In the House of Commons when a great division takes place there is one moment when the House is absolutely empty, save for the presence of the Speaker, the Clerks at the table, the Sergeant-at-Arms, and the messengers attendant. The Sergeant-at-Arms, advancing to the bar, glances keenly round to see that there are no lingerers, and then signal is given to lock the doors. After the cheers and counter-cheers that mark the close of the debate, with the bustle of departing crowds stilled, a strange quietness falls upon the place. The interval is to be counted only by seconds until the doors are unlocked, and one stream enters from beneath the gallery, the other from behind the Speaker's Chair. There is no parallel to this in similar circumstances in the House of Lords, there being, in fact, no locked doors by the passages outward on either side of the throne. So far-reaching was the throng of "Not Contents," that almost before the rear had straggled out of the House by the bar, the vanguard entered from the other side. The benches rapidly filled up. The peers seemed to come in more quickly than they had made their way out. But fully forty minutes elapsed between the signal to start and the announcement that all was over. Here, again, the House of Commons, in some respects less spectacular than the Lords, has the advantage. In the Commons, when a division is completed, the tellers, having handed in their report of the figures, range themselves in line facing the Mace on the table, and he who represents the winning side receives from the Clerk the paper setting forth the result. The floor of the House is a clear space, save for the presence of the four tellers. They retire a few paces, and, with obeisance thrice made to the Chair, advance to the table, where the teller for the victorious side proclaims the result of a contest upon which, perchance, may rest the fate of a Ministry. It is obvious that here is fine opportunity for what on the stage is known as business. Lord Randolph Churchill will not forget that night in June eight years gone by when the paper containing the doom of Mr. Gladstone's Ministry was handed to Mr. Rowland Winn, Whip for the Opposition. As the Whips marched backward to take up their position for advance, there was time for noble lords and hon. members to leap on the benches, wave their hats in triumph, and shout themselves hoarse, whilst Mr. Rowland Winn, the fateful paper in his hand, stood impassive, awaiting opportunity to advance and announce the result. This morning, as Big Ben was sounding the third quarter. of an hour past midnight, there was no space on the floor of the House of Lords for tellers to march up and down. Four hundred and sixty marquises, dukes, and a' that, Old Nobility and New, Bishops and the Master of Buckhounds, were gathered within the four walls. There was no room for them on the benches, and, these filled, noble lords stood round the Woolsack, an almost impenetrable mass, threatening asphyxia to the panting Lord Chancellor. Presently a noble lord was seen making his way through the throng, handing a piece of paper to the Lord Chancellor over the shoulder of a peer who could not get further out of the way. A great silence fell upon the assembly. Without assistance of the token, possible in the Commons, of the paper being in the first instance handed to the Ministerial or Opposition teller, no doubt existed as to the way the aggregate of votes had gone. It is true the Lord Chancellor, forty minutes earlier, had uncompromisingly declared that the Contents had it. Even a Lord Chancellor may be mistaken. Still there remained disclosure of the precise figures by which the fate of the Bill had been sealed. Amid the hush the voice of the Lord Chancellor sounded with clarion clearness-"For the second reading, 41; against, 419." So there had been a mistake somewhere, and, after all, it was the "Not Contents" who "had it." Henry W. Lucy, A Diary of the Home Rule Parliament (London, 1896), 251-255. CHAPTER XXI-THE LIFE OF THE I PEOPLE 134. The Children in the Coal Mines (1842) By ANTONY, OF SHAFTES cause of the classes his own. To redress wrong was SHALL now proceed to the statement I have under- BURY (18011885). taken respecting the condition of the working classes Throughout his life, in our mines and collieries, and the measures requisite to Shaftesbury ameliorate that condition. I am sorry to detain the House made the by reading documents; I shall often have occasion to tres- working pass on their patience; but the subject demands it. I think that the points I wish to establish should be made out by statements and evidence, rather than by any attempts at declamation. In the first place, I shall present the House with the result of the evidence respecting the age and sex of persons employed in the mines and collieries. The extent to which the employment of females prevails varies very much in different districts-in some parts of the country none but males are employed, in other places a great number of females. With respect to the age at In years, which children are worked in mines and collieries in South the purpose for which he the Factory lived, and Acts are the result. "It would not be easy of Shaftes availed in warding off revolution from England, and in softening the bitter spirit between rich and poor." Blackie. In 1840 Lord Ashley secured the appointment mentary com of a Parlia |