The Express.
London, England, 1867-04-13 00:00:00

MGR WATER AT LONDON BRIDOL
_. _ _

TIM DAT —Morning. Sh. 62i Afteriuma, Ta. 341 a.
itI•MOBROW—MATAisg, lob. 160 Altarsooo.lo6. MA.

LONDON, SATURDAY, APRIL 13.

ON the motion for the adjournment over the
Easter Recess another " incident," noteworthy as
a symptom of the state of parties and of sections
of parties in the present House of Commons, arose
quite unexpectedly, as the Irish guest said of the
olives, " to disturb the hilarity of the evening."
These incidents, however trifling in themselves,
are too characteristic to be slighted by the
inquiring student of what we may be allowed to
mill the parliamentary organism. We of the
outer world of mere constituents and taxpayers are
too ready, in the wholesome innocence of our con-
stitutional beliefs, to look upon Parliament as upon
some abstract, impersonal, august, and omnipotent
existence, living and moving in a sphere of sublime
beneficence and justice, far above the petty pas-
sions and interests of private citizens, and, like
the Fate of the ancients, more inaccessible to
human infirmities than the Gods. There are pro-
fane scoffers, no doubt, who treat the House as the
comic dramatists of Athens treated Olympus, with
mingled mockery and reverential tenderness ; who
speak of it habitually as the best club in London,
as a theatre, with its tawdry sentiments and
its striking attitudes at the footlights, and its wires
and pulleys and scene-shifters and prompters at the
wings. For our own part, we have as little sym-
pathy with this systematic vulgarization of the us-
tionalrepresentative assembly aswith theburlesques
that have degraded the drama and the dramatic
art in this country by debauching the public taste
and destroying the illusions of the stage. All
forms of public life are in some sort dramatic ;
all have a representative side ; and if " all the
" world's a stage," all the world has its eoulisees.
It would be the height of absurdity to pretend that
the leaders and followers of the two great
parties in the House of Commons should be always,
under all circumstances, en seine, always fighting
over the body of the British Constitution, or
scowling at one another like the chorus singers at
the Opera, whose simple gestures are precisely
the same in all situations, however ludicrous or
tragical, and whose most natural emotions never
get the better of the leitee. l'arliamentary life
would be intolerable to men of ordinary feelings,
and, indeed, to men of the world, if it obliged
them never to converse with their political oppo-
nents with friendly confidence and social wire-
serve. We should regret, with the CHANCELLOR
of the Excuseuza, if this " happy characteristic,"
as he called it, of the House of Commons, but
which, we daresay, may be found in all Parlia-
mentary assemblies in the old world or
the new, of friendly, social, and personal
relations between representatives of opposed
political parties, should ever be changed into a
" painful reserve," unbecoming gentlemen who
respect themselves and each other enough to feel
assured that their public is inseparable from their
private honour, and that both are beyond suspi-
cion. It is, therefore, not in any puritanical
spirit, or from any wickedly virtuous disinclina-
tion to " soften the asperities of public life,"
that we take leave to consider the " little
" matter " which Mr. OSBORNE brought to the
notice of the House last evening, as one not
entirely, as Mr. DISRAELI would have it, of
that mutual confidence between men of opposite
political parties in the friendly intercourse of
private life, but as occupying at least
a debatable ground on the borders of the
public domain. This " little matter " was
no invasion of the private life of members ;