return from county town_).

"MABEL, YOU'VE BEEN VOTING."]

* * * * *


=ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.=

_Monday, May 21st_.--Mr. MACCALLUM SCOTT complained that a question
of his relating to the prohibition of "dropped scones"--which Captain
BATHURST, that encyclopædia of food-lore, described as falling "under
the same category as the crumpet"--had been addressed to the Ministry
of Munitions instead of the Ministry of Food. It was really a venial
error on the part of the Clerk at the Table, for the modern scone
distinctly suggests a missile of offence, and is much more like a
"crump" than a crumpet. If HINDENBURG were acquainted with our London
tea-shops (_consule_ DEVONPORT) he would never have imagined that his
famous phrase about "biting upon granite" would have any terrors for
the British recruit.

When the PRIME MINISTER read from his manuscripts the proposed
conditions of the Irish Convention--how it must include
representatives not only of political parties, but of Churches, trade
unions, commercial and educational interests, and of _Sinn Fein_
itself; and must be prepared to consider every variety of proposal
that might be brought before it--an Irish colleague whispered to me,
"Sure, the Millennium will be over before we get it."

Nothing could have been handsomer than Mr. REDMOND'S welcome to the