STATESMEN.—No. DCXIII.

MR. ALPHEUS CLEOPHAS MORTON, M.P.

DESPITEFULLY used by his godfathers and god-mothers in his baptism, he has devoted his three-and-fifty years to making headway against the cruel and clumsy joke whereof he was victim while yet a helpless infant. Architect alike of his own fortune and of divers structures of brick and mortar, he has found time to dabble in public affairs as a Common Councilman, a Commissioner of Sewers, a Vestryman of Clapham, another of St. Dunstan's in the West, a Churchwarden, and a Member of sundry Burial Boards and district Boards of Works; distinguishing himself in all these weighty Offices by parochial mind, circumscribed vision, and quite abnormal obstinacy and perversity. His merits as a candidate for Parliament, ignored in turn by Hythe and Christchurch, were recognised four years ago when he was chosen to sit in the House of Commons for Peterborough; which choice being since ratified at the General Election, shows that the borough which in times past was represented by Mr. Whalley preserves its ancient taste for curiosities.

He has proclaimed himself a Radical; and, being a surveyor as well as an architect, he has surveyed the world from China to Peru; with the result that the House has suffered sorely by his speech-making. The platitudes and commonplaces of Radicalism trip freely from his tongue; padded by occasional declarations of personal opinion which reveal the Clapham Vestryman unregenerate. A short residence in Canada once emboldened him to talk about "the backwoods of Egypt"; and his economic zeal in Committee of Supply furnishes him with a wealth of inquiry that is based on the mysteries of "Sub-lead B."

A Churchman who favours disestablishment and dis-endowment, and a Common Councilman who frequently attends City banquets, yet inveighs against the bloated wealth of an effete Corporation, he has just asserted his so-called independence by churlishly opposing the City vote to decorate the streets on the approaching Royal wedding day. He was among the foremost to urge the removal of the drinking-bar from the Lobby, and he failed to induce the National Liberal Club to abandon "sixpenny points"; notwithstanding which he smokes a wooden pipe in public and regards Brixton from the summits of tram-cars. Pachydermatous as the black bag which is constantly with him, he is a notable, yet altogether uninteresting, specimen of the suburban busybody turned politician.

He is a bore.

JEHU JUNIOR.