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VANITY FAIR

APRIL 27, 1899

doubt, one in which girls have much freedom: young married women still more. Yet here—it is openly said—is a lady so unsatisfied with modern conditions that she does not hesitate to discredit an honoured house for—what? At best it would seem for the gratification of a whim. We cannot, of course, pry into family secrets. A lady may have more or less excuse for many erratic proceedings. But, for ourselves, we cannot help believing that nothing can justify a proceeding which can only do discredit to an innocent family. One's duty is, and must always be, proportioned to one's station in life. A may do with impunity what B must never do. And it seems to show a certain unbalance of mind when a highly-placed person behaves in a way that attracts a fierce light which would never be thrown upon a person of lower class. To speak generally, it is hard to see how there can be excuse for such conduct. And the force of this statement is accentuated by the fact that these are days of publicity: days in which the right hand knoweth what the left hand doeth; days of keyhole reporters and journalists whose business is to make sensational copy.

Which, of course, raises another point. If Lady Z does an indiscreet thing, does it render that thing more discreet to publish Lady Z's name, with the story, in a newspaper? Are such things matters of taste, or are they not? There are, we believe, papers still living whose province is to say rude things of Royalties in the full knowledge that Royalty—if it ever see the rudeness at all—may not reply. It is cheap work, but is it creditable, or even lucrative? If your neighbour's daughter do a foolish thing, or a wicked thing, is it a noble business to get upon your housepet and proclaim the girl's indiscretion? And if the girl have a husband is it not still worse to do so? No doubt it is the journalist's business to get "copy": but can any copy be worth the possible prevention of a reconciliation? Yet how many lovers', or matrimonial, quarrels have been "made "up" because the knowledge of them never got outside the family? How many more might have been followed by reconciliation if they had not got outside the family? Verily publicity is not always a wholesome thing.

During the week there has, of course, been much talk of an alleged disappearance; which may or, may not be justified. And whatever the truth may be the story, as it is told, is a very sad one. But that hardly seems to us good reason for sensational writing about a lady who has not been heard, or about the daughter of a house whose own exclusive business after all the matter is. That so much should be so hastily said of a matter which is still obscure is one of the penalties that we have to pay for competition: which is now possibly keener in the newspaper world than ever it was between the South-Eastern and the London, Chatham, and Dover Railways.

## THE WESTMINSTER WEEK.

**TUESDAY.**—So Mr. John Battersea Burns, whose Sabbatical soul is vexed by the proposed Sunday issue of *The D.T.* (what about Reynolds'?), will call the attention of the grandmother of Parliaments to the outrage this day four weeks. Later on we discourse on National Expenses, and enjoy a Private Members' night with Buchanan and Souttar, both from the Land o' Cakes. "Why, Mr. Cheerman, have any Army or Navy at all?" says the ingenuous Souttar, with a Scotch accent you might hang your hat on; and don't hon. Members recollect that the explanation of the Norman Conquest is that Harold's Irregulars all got drunk the night before on Scotch whiskey? Citizen Dilke, Boanerges Allen, and the First Lord struck dumb by the logic of Souttar, stammer out a few words, and the House counts itself out for dinner.

**Wednesday.**—Primrose Day. Thoughtfully selected by the Melancholy One, who is unable to attend the meeting at the Albert Hall, but has seized the psychological moment for introducing his own Crimes Bill. Quite in the old form: wigs on the green, thunder and turf, Donnybrook going strong, and all the concomitants of an Irish night in the distant days of Joe Biggar and the Uncrowned King—except that it was “Hamlet,” with Hamlet left out, and instead of the eighty Bhoys of ten years back we have an exiguous half score of patriots dotting the green benches below the gangway. Still, we retain the services of our Rentoul (not yet promoted to ermine); of M.A.P. or Tay Pay, by whatever initials he is known; of Davitt the Desperate, and Dunbar Barton, not yet reduced to

the cocked hat and knee-breeches in which he is said to have escaped from the fire at Hyde Park Court.

**Thursday.**—Since Stanley Leighton's "pregnant bull" of Monday we have had no light reading, but Maclean, emulous of the dagger speech of Burke or the tragic exit of the Macgregor in the Parliament of '94, had arranged a little comedy over barley sugar and bull's eyes; and having a difference of opinion with the Indian Secretary and an accentuated argument with honourable friends behind, walks across the floor and seats himself with self-conscious virtue between Courtenay Warner and Citizen Dilke: apparently only a temporary arrangement. After which Samuel Smith, outraged by the gay Lord Quex, Alhambra, Empire, Exeter Hall, and other places of amusement, and horror-stricken at the suggestion of the irreverent Pierpoint that he has personally visited such haunts of immorality, invokes the L.C.C. and Mrs. Chant. Subsequently we turn our attention to the Budget, and for six mortal hours endure the financial criticisms of Yoxall (where was Gray?), Broadhurst of Leicester, Peterborough Purvis, Mr. Labby, Tommy Bowles (somewhat of an expert), and Stockton Samuel, finishing up with Historicus, fresh from Monte Carlo, quite in the old form, addressing hon. friends behind him with his back to Mr. Speaker, making the box jump on the table and the mace rattle on its stand, and bringing down the House as the Member for Derby did in the old Home Rule days of '94.

**Friday.**—A day with the Service Members—they used to call them the Colonels—with Warrior Williams, like Athanasius, against the world. Hon. and gallant gentlemen are apparently troubled about lacteal developments at Aldershot, the W.O. having sagaciously seized the opportunity of an outbreak of scarlet fever in camp to supply the troops with milk from the sewage farm. Question is: Shall Tommy Atkins be suckled on sewage milk? "Yes," says the Warrior; "I drink it myself at Birmingham for choice." "No," say the Service Committee; and things look awkward, reminding one of Cordite Campbell-Bannerman and June, '95, till Lewis MacIver, smelling defeat in the Lobby, induces the Front Bench to postpone their therapeutic experiment for the present. For the rest, in the absence of Agag, we get along pleasantly enough, filling up the time with disquisitions on Quick-firing Guns, Surgeon-Colonels and Colonel-Surgeons, Ammunition, Boots, Dum Dum Bullets, and Barracks in South Africa (which are the red flag to a bull with Caithness Clarke); and eventually gratify the representatives of the W.O. with four more votes and about five millions of money.

**Monday.**—Maclean, late Indian journalist and general administrator, is not happy. Cannot for the life of him understand why the authorities persist in calling chocolate creams and sugar-candy "pickles," and seriously thinks of moving the adjournment on the subject. If the Private Member particularly desires to ingratiate himself with the First Lord or the Colonial Secretary let him put a few leading questions as to Old Age Pensions and election cards. He will find both right hon. gentlemen affable and condescending on the subject, but he may not personally be selected for the next Under-Secretaryship.

JAWKINS, M.P.

## IN THE STOCKS.

**L**ORD RUSSELL'S Bill to compete with the difficulty of secret commissions is excellently well meant; and when it has been emasculated into Law, it will, I hope, do some good. But I fancy the commission-monger will find an easier way through the smallest-meshed net than the coach-and-four. Lord Justice Fry was a greater man in his way than the present Lord Chief Justice, and he knew that the whole of business was "honeycombed"—(his own word)—with the secret commission business. He could not help it: he could only comment on it—strongly. Can Lord Russell, I wonder, do more?

Mr. Hooley has set Lord Russell in motion; and Lord Russell has said things that we all agree with: more than all of us, perhaps, Mr. Hooley himself. But to what end?

I knew a cook once who brought her mistress a little parcel that the milkman gave her on Boxing Day. That cook was an innocent old lady, and her little parcel contained three half-crowns. She is dead.

Are there any more like her?

I wonder, is the difference between Hercules and Lord Russell of Killowen?

The Augean Stable needs a Hercules to cleanse it. What,

I have said that Mr. Hooley set Lord Russell in motion; but he did it by way of the London Chamber of Commerce: who, immediately, got the L.C.J. to father the Bill that is now