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308 of the police in regulating such irregular entertainments. Everything, indeed, is now carried to the hustings and to the platform; and at proper times, and in convenient places, there can be no reason why garrulous members of Parliament should not expend upon public meetings some of those verbose utterances which are so little appreciated in the House of Commons. But that they should go through this performance in the thoroughfares of this crowded city, and at a time when Parliament is sitting, and when every real grievance can be ventilated therein, is a little too much for sensible men to be called upon to endure, and is calculated to bring not only the performers themselves (which would be a trivial matter), but Parliament itself into contempt. One of these "champions of the people," indeed, has shown his total want of appreciation of his duty as a member of the House of Commons by a course of proceeding which has subjected him to condign punishment at the hands of the outraged House. If there is one rule beyond all others which is necessary for the preservation of the dignity and character of the House of Commons, it is that which enjoins that implicit obedience and respect should be paid to the authority of the Speaker, which is, in fact, the delegated authority of the House itself. The letter of Mr Conybeare, which appeared in the columns of a new Radical paper called the 'Star,' upon the 20th of July, set this rule wholly at defiance, and contained reflections upon the Speaker of which the House was bound to take immediate and peremptory notice. "We do not desire to dwell upon the incident, or to attach any importance to the actions of so very unimportant a person as Mr Conybeare. It may be remarked, however, that in the whole course of our parliamentary history such a letter has probably never been, written by a member of Parliament, or such a flagrant offence alike against good taste and against the order of the House of Commons been committed by one of its members. A month's suspension is by no means too severe a penalty to have been inflicted upon the culprit, and it is satisfactory to find that the House of Commons will not permit such an infringement of its most cherished rules to pass without instant punishment.

As long, however, as we have persons of this calibre returned by enlightened constituencies to Parliament, evils of this kind must be expected; and we can only rejoice in the wisdom of the House of Commons in having modified the action of such men within its walls by the judicious adoption and application of the closure. This remedy, which had long been foreseen as inevitable by those who had watched the deterioration of the House of Commons as a business-like assembly, has, during the present session, rendered inestimable service to Parliament and the country. Mr Gladstone, indeed, who never loses an opportunity of administering palatable doses of "blarney" to the Irish contingent of his followers, informed the latter at one of his latest post-prandial utterances, that it was largely owing to their forbearance and good behaviour in refraining from "urging the claims of their country," and placing "impediments" in the way of legislation, that progress had been made with the Local Government Bill and other legislative business, and that a