ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

Monday, February 21st.—Althoughde minimis non curat lex, our law-makers delight in very small jokes. When Mr.Cecil Beck, as Vice-Chamberlain of the Household, deliveredHis Majesty's reply to the Address the House of Commons was chiefly interested in watching how he would accomplish the feat of walking backwards from the Table to the Bar. More than once in past history the task has proved too much for the man who essayed it, and the orderly retreat has degenerated into a shambling rout. But there was no such hitch to-day. Progressive politician though he is, Mr.Beckretraced his steps with graceful ease, and fully deserved the applause that rewarded his effort.

FINANCIAL OPTIMISM.Mr. Micawber Asquith.

FINANCIAL OPTIMISM.

Mr. Micawber Asquith.

Irreverent opponents of thePrime Ministerhave sometimes compared him toMicawber, on the ground that he was always waiting for something to turn up. I found another link to-day between these celebrated characters. As Mr.Asquithunfolded the details of the two new Votes of Credit, one of 120 millions to clear up the present financial year, the other of 300 millions to start the new one, he reminded me ofMicawbercalculating his indebtedness toTraddles. While professing a proper alarm at the colossal amount of the expenditure—nearly two thousand millions already, or twice the cost of the twenty-two years' war againstNapoleon—he rolled these gigantic figures off his tongue as if he loved them. You will rememberCopperfield'sremark when the famous I.O.U. had been handed over: "I am persuaded not only that this was quite the same to Mr. Micawber as paying the money, but that Traddles himself hardly knew the difference until he had had to think about it." ThePrime Minister'sfinancial optimism left the House under much the same impression, and Mr.McKennarather deepened it by the declaration that with prudence and statesmanship our credit would survive the War however long it might last.

Tuesday, February 22nd.—For nearly ten years, without a break, Mr.George Lambert, Yeoman, as the reference-books describe him, sat on the Treasury Bench as Civil Lord of the Admiralty. Then the Coalition came along and his place knew him no more. For eight long months he has yearned to let the new Administration know what he thought of them, and to-day he seized the opportunity furnished by the Vote on Account.

Beginning with a moving tale of how the War Office took several weeks and a traction engine to move a load of hay two miles from a rick to a railway station in his native Devon, the Yeoman proceeded with other counts of his indictment. ThePrime Ministermentioned yesterday a new plan by which an outside Committee, composed of business men and headed by a Cabinet Minister, was checking the expenditure of the Service Departments. (The cost of shells, we were told to-day by Dr.Addison, has been brought down to a figure which means an economy of £400,000 a week on our future production.)

But Mr.Lambertwould have none of it. Speaking with all the authority of his long official experience he laid down the dictum that one Cabinet Minister could not supervise another. Next he attacked the new Order in Council, which makes the Chief of the Staff responsible for the orders given to the Army, declaring that it reduced LordKitchenerto the level of a civilian; and finally he denounced the Government for not making more use of LordFisher. Under the stress of these terrific blows the Government ought to have reeled, if it did not fall. But nothing happened, except that the Votes on Account for four hundred and twenty millions were by half-past seven duly passed.

In the Lords meanwhile the Government was sustaining a heavier attack, arising out of their failure to stop all supplies from reaching Germany. LordSydenhamattributed it to the Declaration of London, which had crippled the Navy; LordBeresfordthought it was the result of trying to run a war with a Cabinet that included twenty-one amateurs. LordLansdowne, a master of the quip modest, thereupon stated the Government's intention to add a twenty-second to the twenty-one by appointing a Minister of Blockade.

Wednesday, February 23rd.—At Question-time, Mr.Asquithannounced that the new Minister was LordRobert Cecil. It is close upon fifty years since another LordRobert Cecil(who had just become LordCranborne) entered the Cabinet of LordDerby.

NEW DEPARTURES BY SEA AND AIR.Lord Robert Cecil and Lord Derby.

NEW DEPARTURES BY SEA AND AIR.

Lord Robert Cecil and Lord Derby.

In consequence of the recent decision that no Member shall in future receive two salaries it had been rumoured that Parliamentary salaries would be abolished altogether. There were signs of heartfelt relief from various quarters of the House when thePremiermet the suggestion with an uncompromising "No."

Captain J. S.Rankine, the khaki-clad giant who took his seat for East Toxteth to-day, had a warm reception, all the more grateful in view of the blizzard that raged without. The temperature of the House fell rapidly, however, when Mr.Snowdenproceeded to outline his views on the subject of peace. In vain he attempted to show that there was a considerable party in Germany ready to come to terms if only they knew what ourterms were. Members listened in chilly silence. They thawed into laughter when the Hon. Member with some lack of humour quoted the GermanChancellor'sdeclaration, "We do not threaten small nations;" and they cheered when he quoted, with intent to condemn, LordRosebery'sstatement that Germany must be utterly crushed. Nor was the House more impressed by Mr.Trevelyan'sproposal that as there might be a peace-party in Germany it was our duty to "state our full terms and find out."

ThePrime Minister'sreply was, I fear, very painful to the pacificists. The GermanChancellor'sstatement he found to be one of "colossal and shameless audacity." German Socialists might prate of peace, but only twenty out of five times that number in the Reichstag had the courage to vote against the War Credit. Our terms were already on record in the speech which he made at theLord Mayor'sBanquet in 1914. Until Belgium—"and I will add Serbia"—has been fully reinstated, until France is secured against aggression, until the smaller nationalities are safeguarded, until the military domination of Prussia is destroyed, "not until then shall we or any of our gallant Allies abate by one jot our prosecution of this War." The cheers that greeted this declaration lasted almost as long as the speech itself. In the ensuing debate Mr.Ponsonby, Sir W.Byles, and one or two others emitted what Mr.Stantonpicturesquely described as "the croakings and bleatings of the fatted lambs who had besmirched their own country." But they created no effect. Mr.Snowden's early peace had been nipped by the frost.

Thursday, February 24th.—In both Houses the administration of the Military Service Act was again the subject of criticism. From the explanations given by LordNewtonand Mr.Tennantit appears that most of the complaints against the recruiting officers for over-pressure have come from men who were applying for armlets, not for exemption. As LordNewtonput it, a man, if he wants to obtain an armlet, must run the risk of being taken for some kind of service. Mr.Tennantreminded some of his critics, not superfluously, that the object of this Act was to get men to serve.

LordDerby, fresh from his triumph as Director of Recruiting, is to act as Chairman of the new Joint Committee which will supervise and co-ordinate naval and military aviation. For him, as for that otherAriel, "there's more work." The same is now true of ColonelLockwoodwho, since the opening of the Session, has been in a condition of suspended animation. The Kitchen Committee, in the opinion of many Members the most important of all the Committees, had not been set up, and consequently could not elect a Chairman. How Members have lived through more than a week without any visible means of securing subsistence it is not for me to reveal. Suffice it to say that no case of absolute starvation has come to my notice. To-day all is well. The Kitchen Committee is again in being, and "Uncle Mark" has once more been appointed Minister of the Interior (unpaid, except by the gratitude and affection of his fellow-Members). Fresh responsibilities have now been thrust upon him. This afternoon it fell to him, as temporary Leader of the Opposition, to ask the customary question as to next week's business. Having heard thePrime Minister'sreply, he sat for a few moments as if lost in thought, calculating, no doubt, by a rapid process of mental arithmetic what the Consolidated Fund Bill, Supplementary Estimates and the Civil Service Vote would amount to in terms of dinners, teas and other light refreshments.

Enraged Tommy(bespattered with mud by sniper's bullet aimed a bit too low). "Put up yer sight, yer careless blighter!"

On a bookseller's stall in Liverpool:—

"The English Nation. A really cheap lot."

We find them most expensive to keep up.

Jimmy says his bloodhound is always very glad to get loose after being tied up all night, and it's becauseHarveydiscovered the circulation of the blood. Jimmy says Faithful doesn't know he has got the circulation of the blood, but he always has a little run round when he gets free. It only takes him about five minutes to do his round, and an hour and a-half afterwards you would never believe he had been round at all, things are so quiet again.

Jimmy says the man next door told him he didn't mind so much about the circulation of the blood as the circulation of the bloodhound. Jimmy says it's because his chickens all begin shouting Hooray! as soon as Faithful starts, and they get up trees to watch him instead of being busy laying eggs at twopence each. Faithful doesn't want them to go up trees, Jimmy says, and tries to make them come down, but they won't—not on any account—and he has to leave them for other things that require his attention.

Jimmy says there's a charwoman in one of the houses on Faithful's beat, and sometimes you can hear her trying to char him, and then lots of things come out through the front door, with Faithful in the middle of them. Sometimes you don't know which is Faithful and which is a scrubbing-brush, and it's because of the revolution. Jimmy says if Faithful notices that anything wants doing on his way round he always tries to do it, even though nobody knew that it wanted doing. Faithful got a sparrow out of a greenhouse like that, Jimmy says. It was a cheeky sparrow and kept flying about at Faithful and hiding behind the pots on the stage. Jimmy says bloodhounds don't stand any nonsense of that sort, and the sparrow ought to have known it. But it kept looking round flower-pots at Faithful and chirruping at him sideways, and didn't realise that its life hung by a thread.

Jimmy says the best of well-trained bloodhounds is that they never get flurried; they go about their work systematically. The sparrow didn't seem to know that, Jimmy says, and when Faithful got on the stage and began clearing the decks for action it actually had the face to go and pick up a worm that came out of one of the pots that fell on the ground. Jimmy says whenever a pot rolled off the stage Faithful always looked over the edge to see if it had arrived safely. He is always careful like that.

Jimmy says the sparrow only escaped by the skin of its teeth, because just as Faithful had got everything out of the way and was going to set to work in earnest, the sparrow flew out and went and sat up in a tree chirruping like anything. Faithful was absolutely disgusted with it, Jimmy says.

Jimmy took his bloodhound out to the Hill Farm one morning. The farmer was very glad to see Faithful again, Jimmy says; he told Jimmy that they were going to cut corn and there would be a main of rabbits in them for sure. Jimmy says bloodhounds have to turn their hands to anything these days, even catching rabbits. Faithful didn't seem to mind, Jimmy says, butit seemed very curious to hear the deep baying of a bloodhound in a peaceful cornfield. Jimmy says it made the men stop work and look at each other, and the man who was driving the reaping-machine got down to see where it wanted oiling. You see he hadn't heard a bloodhound before.

There was another dog there, Jimmy says, in case the rabbits came out too quickly for Faithful to catch them all. The first rabbit that came out didn't have any chance, Jimmy says. It bolted out as hard as it could, and there was a splendid race between the rabbit and Faithful. You see the rabbit was making for a burrow in the hedge, but old Faithful got there first and tried to get his head down it, to cut off the rabbit's retreat. Jimmy says the rabbit was nonplussed, and the other dog caught it easily. It is beautiful to see two dogs work together like that, Jimmy says.

Jimmy says Faithful didn't require the help of the other dog with the next rabbit that came his way, but the other dog was very impulsive. You see Faithful was lying down with his mouth open trying to look like a rabbit hole, and he did it so well that the rabbit came straight at him. Jimmy says Faithful swerved about ten yards to one side in order to hurl himself bodily at the rabbit, and he would have done it if the other dog hadn't poked his nose in.

Jimmy says the other dog killed the rabbit, but Faithful went up and smelt at it like anything. Faithful is a splendid smeller, Jimmy says. He can retrieve rabbits almost as well as he can catch them.

The farmer was surprised to see how quickly Faithful got off the mark at the sound of the gun. You see the farmer was standing close by Faithful and he had no sooner shot at a rabbit than away went Faithful right across two fields, retrieving as hard as he could. Jimmy had to fetch him back from doing it.

Jimmy says it was a new experience for the men to have a trained bloodhound in the harvest field, and they could talk of nothing else whilst they were having their dinners. You see two of the men had mislaid their dinners somehow, and every time they looked at Faithful they kept wondering. One man said his dinner was in a pudding-basin, and he looked everywhere. Faithful did his best to help him, Jimmy says, and kept just two yards ahead of him, twisting in and out.

The man noticed something was the matter with Faithful and advised Jimmy to have his neck wrung: he offered to do it himself.

Jimmy says the man seemed very suspicious because Faithful looked so T.B. (you know: Totally Bulged); but Jimmy took up Faithful and shook him for the man to hear, and there wasn't any sound of broken crockery at all.

The other man who had lost his dinner didn't bother to look for it; he was busy cutting a stick out of the hedge, and when he had done it he borrowed a piece of bacon from another man to present to Faithful. Jimmy says you do it by saying, "Dear little doggie," in a husky voice. Jimmy says bloodhounds don't like husky voices, they get on their nerves. So Faithful refused the bacon as hard as he could.

Jimmy says he knew Faithful would follow him, and sure enough, when he had got a mile on his way home, there was Faithful waiting for him, holding the pudding-basin in his mouth by the cloth.

Jimmy says when he got home there was quite a crowd round the house where Faithful had removed the greenhouse from off the sparrow. A policeman told Jimmy all about it. It appeared, so the policeman said, that some person or persons unknown had got to know that the people in the house were harbouring a German governess and had smashed up the greenhouse in revenge. The greenhouse looked as if it had been struck by a bomb, the policeman said, and when the people saw it they knew their secret was out and went and confessed to the police. The policeman told Jimmy that they had just taken the German governess away to the police-station.

Jimmy says that when he got home he sat down and looked at Faithful for half-an-hour—just looked at him. To think that Faithful had been on the Spy Trail all the time and Jimmy never knew it!

"Mr. Gordon Hewart, opening the president of the London Chamber of Commerce ..."The Star.

"Mr. Gordon Hewart, opening the president of the London Chamber of Commerce ..."

The Star.

The Hebdomadal Council of Oxford University have suspended for six months the filling of the Professorship of Modern Greek, the view apparently being that there is no one about just now who understands the modern Greek.

Youthful Patriot. "Take away the night-light, Mary. I'd rather risk the dark than attract a Zeppelin."

"The Rivista Marittimapublishes details of a new German ironclad, which is claimed to be totally unsinkable.... It is said to be a Dreadnought-cruiser, fitted with triple skins of armour, stuffed with non-resisting material."—Times.

It sounds like one of our conscientious objectors.

"The albatross—its docility was charming—soon occupied a splendid isolation on the tarpaulined covered hatchway platform.... I shall in future read Keats' 'Ancient Mariner' with an accentuated interest."Natal Witness.

Natal Witness.

Coleridge's"Ode to a Nightingale" was rejected as dealing with the wrong bird.

"Young Lady-Attendant for Allies' Rifle Range, to replace one getting married; the 3rd in 12 months doing the same; good remuneration, and comfortable job."—Glasgow Citizen.

Bow and arrow or .303, Cupid's markmanship remains unerring.

"The Man who dined at Krupp's and worked with the Kaiser."Morning Paper Heading.

"The Man who dined at Krupp's and worked with the Kaiser."

Morning Paper Heading.

ThemenuatKrupp'sis not given, but was probably some form of pig.

"SCOTCH NURSES IN SERBIA.GERMAN DOCTOR'S IMPRESSIONS.'VERY FORBIDDING.'"Egyptian Gazette.

"SCOTCH NURSES IN SERBIA.

GERMAN DOCTOR'S IMPRESSIONS.

'VERY FORBIDDING.'"

Egyptian Gazette.

From a notice of a recent novel:—

"The present reviewer's pen cleaves to the roof of his mouth when he tries to describe it."—Evening Standard.

That should teach him to get rid of the nasty habit of sucking the nib.

"He's kicked the Corporal!"

"He's kicked the Vet.!!"

"He's kicked the Transport Officer!!!"

"He's kicked the Colonel!!!!"

I think I never read a story that impressed me as more untimely than this to which Mr.Ivor Brownhas given the title ofSecurity(Secker). It is about an Oxford Don, oneJohn Grant, who became, as others have become, irked by the placid routine of Senior Common-Room existence, and yearned for adventure. So he came to London, and got his first dose of it as a labour-agitator and backer of strikes. I suppose that the atmosphere of labour-agitating and strike-backing is skilfully conveyed (that of Oxford donship undoubtedly is), but I can't tell you how antique it all seems. These scornful quotations from an imaginary Capitalist press and the fierce denial that industrial strife was ever assisted by foreign agencies—it all sounds like a voice from ancient history. One rubs one's ears at it. Eventually militant Socialism weariesJohnas much as academic torpor had done, and to escape from both he marries a wife. More atmosphere, this time of a dreary little seaside town and its so-called society. ButJohnfares no better here; and at last, on his return from a walking holiday, he finds thatMrs. John, unable to put up with him any longer, is putting up without him at a London hotel in company with Another. That seems a situation insecure enough to satisfy the most exacting. But even from this nothing results, and husband and wife drift together again. I like to think that nowadays, what with Zeps and other things, poor oldJohnmay grow really contented. Meanwhile, clever as it is, the tale seems oddly anæmic and unreal. It is like those tragically trivial journals of 1914 that still survive in the dusty waiting-rooms of dentists. I don't suggest that Mr.Brown, whose previous book I much admired, should write about the War; but I could wish him a little more in tune with the spirit it has produced.

Faith Tresilion(Ward, Lock) is a book of brave and of some diabolical deeds, but as Mr.Eden Phillpottssees to it that his murderers and wreckers get their due he leaves me with the hopeful feeling that what happened to super-criminals a hundred years or so ago will also be their fate in this year of grace.Faithis the type of heroine with whom readers of this amazingly industrious author are familiar—a fearless girl who does a man's work without for a moment becoming unsexed. She was in a difficult position enough, for her brother was a smuggler and she was in love, head to heels, with the local gangster. There are other complications, but this is the chief one, and it is worked out in Mr.Phillpotts' best West-country manner. I acceptFaithand salute her, but it is before her mother that I completely bow the knee. Mrs.Tresilionwas paralysed up to her waist, which was just as well, for if her activities had not been limited she would have swamped the whole book. As it was she lay in bed, drank gin, directed various operations with her eye fixed rather upon this world than the next, and told her visitors precisely what she thought of them. I am thankful not to have met this devastating lady in the flesh, because to be called "a hookery-snidy, trundle-trailed king-crab," and then told to kiss her, would have been more than I could bear.

I feel that MissConstance Holmewill be the first to agree with me on reflection that as a beginning of a chapter inThe Old Road from Spain(Mills) the following will not do: "The long bright day idled interminably to its tryst with night. Luis ate his lonely meals in the silent room," etc. It illustrates a defect of her rather over-intense method. She would readily forgive me this stricture if she could know the eagerness with which I read her picturesque pages to find out exactly what was the matter with theHuddlestonsof Thorn. From a Spanish ancestor, who had been wrecked with the Armada, they had inherited acurse. It was a very original curse, and I dare not deprive you of the pleasure of finding out what it was for yourself. MissHolmeputs in her background of mystery with skilful touches and handles her characterisation with a good deal more subtlety than your mere mystery-monger can command. She observes both men and things with affection, writes of them with imagination.Rowly Huddleston, the committee-ridden squire of Thorn, looks like a careful portrait from life, and probably somebody also sat for that faithful soul,Crane, the butler. A book to be commended. Its defects are the defects of exuberance, the sort one only begins to notice after one has said, "Hello! this is pretty good!"

The Greater Glory(Hodder and Stoughton) is a collection of very short sketches concerned with the War. They are a little unequal, some being better than others, and others (naturally) being worse than some. They all reveal their author, MissEvelyn Orchard, as possessed of a pleasantly unforced style, and perhaps rather more ease than imagination. One of them, my own favourite, the story of a parson who enlisted, is conspicuous as containing so admirable a recruiting speech that I can only hope it is transcribed from life. Having said so much, perhaps I may be forgiven by MissOrchardif I add that I would rather have read her up upon some lighter theme. Her tuneful pipe contains some very pleasant notes, both of sentiment and humour, but is altogether too thin for variations upon so tremendous a motive as she has chosen. I express, of course, only my personal feeling; but I am certain that unless a book can rise to the magnitude of the War it had best leave it alone. Still it may well be that others will find interest, and even consolation, in these little papers. They have at least the charm of simplicity, and are obviously the products of a gentle and sympathetic nature. Thus, MissOrchardcan still see the pathos of the German private. Well, well.

"Look, dear—isn't that good? 'Will you march too, or wait till March the Second'?"

[Suggested by an interview between M.Sazonoffand Mr.Harold BegbieinThe Daily Chronicle.]

The Russian statesman,Harold Begbiethinks,Is a good egg and not a subtle Sphinx;Some day perhaps he will a better egg beAnd tell us frankly what he thought ofBegbie.

The Russian statesman,Harold Begbiethinks,

Is a good egg and not a subtle Sphinx;

Some day perhaps he will a better egg be

And tell us frankly what he thought ofBegbie.

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