Without RAIKES _Rex_ for Ruler. _Vivat_ RAIKES!!!

* * * * *

ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

EXTRACTED FROM THE DIARY OF TOBY, M.P.

_House of Commons, Monday, March_ 16.--House of Commons really looked
to-night as if it meant fighting. No lack of matter for quarrel.
Even before public business was reached, Orders bristled with Motions
raising controversial points. Lord CHUNNEL-TANNEL, that man of peace,
was to the fore; his Bill, extending Manchester. Sheffield, and
Lincolnshire Railway into London _via_ Lord's Cricket Ground, down for
Second Reading. That redoubtable Parliamentary Archer BAUMANN also
on alert. Has taken under his personal charge the social and material
welfare of Metropolis; at one time HARRY LAWSON, on other side of
House, disputed supremacy of position with him. But, as SARK says,
BAUMANN has immense advantage of making Liberal speeches from
Conservative side.

"If," says SARK, "I had to begin my Parliamentary life again, I would
sit for a Tory borough, and advocate Radical notions. If it were
possible, I would, with such a programme, like to represent one of the
Universities, Oxford for choice. There's a sameness about fellows who
fret up from Liberal benches and spout Radicalism, or about men who
talk Toryism from the Conservative camp. It's what was expected; what
the House of Commons enjoys is the unexpected. GRANDOLPH knows that
very well. If he'd come out as a Liberal, he wouldn't have been half
the power he is. The secret of success in political life, my young