Bargoed Journal. — 1908-04-09 (Gelligaer, Mid Glamorgan, Wales)

WALTER MURRAY. The House of Commons, popularly supposed to be the best Club in London is at once the dullest and the most  exciting spectacle to be seen in the world. This may seem paradoxical, but the truth is, St. Stephen's always reminded me of the rhyme of the days of my childhood : There was a little girl—and she had a  little curl-That ran straight down her forehead; And when she was good—she was very very good— And when she was bad—she was horrid." Similarly it may be said of the House of Commons—when it is dull it is very very dull, .and memory recalls many a hot weary afternoon spent or rather misspent there, listening to the interminable "drip, drip, drip" of some Prince of Bores who had arrived laden with Blue Books, papers and note-books enough to stock a public library, and for his own variety and my punishment has proceeded "to address the House" on "this important question, Sir—this crying scandal, -er—this—national—er disgrace, sir,' and so on and so on. .  Two facts seem to have prodigiously impressed the odd million or so of writers in connection with the late Duke of Devonshire—that he was easily bored, and that he was an honest man, i.e., hellOold neither his party nor his principles. My first impression of His Grace was when as Lord Hartington he sat on the Treasury Bench as Secretary for India in 1882. In May of that year the civilised world was horror struck by the Phcenix Park Murders—the 1 assassination of Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr. Burke. On the night of the day that saw the victims of Carey's assassins laid to rest in Edenser Churchyard I heard the late Sir William *Harcourt introduce the Crimes Bill— the Government's answer to the murderer's knife. That was a memorable occasion—no " dullness " that night. I For four and a half hours the odes of pas-;:on and invective flowed and ebbed and vhan :e all trooped into Palace 1-rd in the glorious sunshine of a superb morning (the debatl lasted till fI.W a.m.) .11 felt they had assisted to " imilre history." Going into the Strangers' Gallery a few weeks later I peered over the rail and . was immediately ! facinated by tin appearance of one 1 occupant of the -Front Bench, who with his silk hat pulled well over his nose, his arms folded and his legs stretched to their fullest capacity—slept—yes slept l as peacefully as a child—the while the ' Chamber rang with cheers and counter Icheers, quip and retort. " Lord Hari tington," whispered a man at my elbow, land so it was. Then the division bells I whirred and tinged and His Ltirdship  I slowly rose, yawned, glanced resentfully j at the Speaker's chair and hurrying into the Lobby was seen no more of men. that !e•,,erling  A writer in a weekly contemporary I said that " it is indeed remarkable that a me o bored so easily should have done so mech." But a few months after the incideat above related I saw Lord Hartington at bay, and heard him in a speech of twenty minutes terse commonsense " knock the stuffing" out of his opponents in a fashion that made one wonder whether this attitude of boredom was not really a marnerism—a trick of the outward seeming that only served to mask his sturdy English "you be damnedness " and kept him from the army of bores and self-seekers who buzz round every prominent man at Westminster like flies round a sugar cask. That he could speak well and to the point when it saited 11'm no ono could ' doubt who hoard him on that inemor• able afternoon it the Opera House, Covent Garden, at the great meeting I which saw tie Lirtli of Liberal Unionism and practically sounded the death knell of Home itulo. ilut,Lerse, businesslike—he might have been the chairman of some reat commercial undertaking rlg a meeting of shazeholders— hen the back of Irish Nai ioralisla. A few nights later! heard him in o. House packed to bursting, hushed with that curious hush of intent earnest attention that is the peculiar property of the Commons at their best, move the rejectioa of Mr. Gladstone's Home Rule Bill and every schoolboy knows how thoroughly the Nation supported him subsequently—and looking back across the vista of years one feels instinctively the applicability of Shakespeare's lines— He was a man—take him for all in all, shall not look upon his like again."  adtlro.9  rather