contrary he dislikes them so much that he would like to keep St. George's
Channel between them and himself. But by his own speeches he has hypnotized
himself into the belief that everything done by the British Government in
Ireland must have a corrupt motive. His colleague from West Belfast is not
much wiser, to judge by the tone of his speech to-night; and I think Mr.
DUKE, who is doing his best to reconcile the irreconcilable, must have been
tempted to adapt one of MR. DILLON'S phrases and to say that Ireland was
between the DEVLIN and the deep sea.

_Tuesday, February 27._--The capture of Kut has had an exhilarating effect
upon Lord CREWE. Not long ago he was warning us against excessive
jubilation over the British advance in that region. Now he justified his
title by coming out as a regular _Chanticleer_, and invited Lord CURZON to
tell the assembled Peers that we might be confident of regaining
predominance in the whole of Mesopotamia.

[Illustration: LORD BUCKMASTER'S DREAM OF A BRIGHTENED HOUSE OF LORDS.]

In these times the Lords can refuse nothing to the Ladies. In moving the
second reading of a Bill to enable women to become solicitors Lord
BUCKMASTER may have approached his subject in the spirit of a cautious
knight-errant, as Lord SUMNER said, but he carried his argument. He owed
something, perhaps, to the unintentional assistance of his opponents. Lord
BUCKMASTER had incidentally mentioned that a woman once sat on the
Woolsack, and there administered such very odd law that the City of London
rose in mutiny. This shocked the historical sense of Lord HALSBURY, who
hastened to point out that the lady in question had left the Woolsack for a
reason entirely creditable to her sex, namely to become the mother of one
of our greatest Kings. Then Lord FINLAY, who now occupies the seat alleged
to have been filled by ELEANOR of Provence, endeavoured to frighten their