popular excitement on his behalf; and to prove that he must,
without any special legislation, be benefited by the
extraordinary organic changes then being made in the constitution
of the country.

Sir Charles Sterling resumed his interest in the boy. He had
been gallantly aiding his party in other questions. There was
the Timbuctoo question. A miserable desert chief had shut up a
wandering Englishman, not possessed of wit enough to keep his
head out of danger. There was a general impression that English
honor was at stake, and the previous Fogey Government had ordered
an expedition to cross the desert and punish the sheikh. You
would never believe what it cost if you had not seen the bill.
Ten millions sterling was as good as buried in the desert, when
one-tenth of it would have saved a hundred thousand people from
starvation at home, and one-hundredth part of it would have taken
the fetters off the hapless prisoner's feet.

There was the St. Helena question always brooding over
Parliament. St. Helena was a constituent part of the British
Empire. Every patriot agreed that the Empire without it would be
incomplete; and was so far right that its subtraction would have
left the Empire by so much less. Most of its inhabitants were
aboriginal--a mercurial race, full of fire, quick-witted, and
gifted with the exuberant eloquence of savages, but deficient in
dignity and self-control. Before any one else had been given
them by Providence to fight, they slaughtered and ravaged one
another. Our intrusive British ancestors stepped upon the
island, and, being strong men, mowed down the islanders like
wheat, and appropriated the lands their swords had cleared.