paths of government one of these so-called principles immediately rises up, paralyses their action, and makes them an object either of mockery or of compassion.’ He took a grim delight in compelling the Under Secretary for the Colonies--‘this humanitarian Minister’--and even Mr. Gladstone himself, to defend or palliate the use of dynamite by the Boers in their warfare with the natives. When Mr. Evelyn Ashley was stung by much sarcastic comment into condemning ‘the ill-regulated impulses of humanity’ which appeared to prompt the Opposition attack, Lord Randolph replied that he had passed the gravest censure on the Prime Minister, whose whole career had consisted in giving way to such ‘ill-regulated impulses’ and persuading the nation to agree with him. Now, as always, he was an economist. He subjected the Civil Service Estimates to an unremitting scrutiny. The repair of Royal Palaces, the up-keep of the Royal Mews and Parks, formed the subject of protracted debate. He attacked the Royal Buckhounds--‘’Arry’s Hounds,’ as he called them--and declared that only a Cockney who did not know the difference between a field of oats and a field of wheat, and no true sportsman, would take part in the pursuit of a tame animal kept in captivity for the purpose of being hunted over and over again. Against such criticisms the Liberal Ministers could furnish no reply satisfactory to their own supporters. [Illustration: _Reproduced by permission of the proprietors of ‘Punch.’_ ATHWART THE COURSE. R-ND-LPH CH-RCH-LL. (_an aggravating Boy_): ‘In the way again! ’ooray!!’ _Punch_, July 7, 1883.]