Even in a period of political activity there is small scope for the supporter of a Government. The Whips do not want speeches, but votes. The Ministers regard an oration in their praise or defence as only one degree less tiresome than an attack. The earnest party man becomes a silent drudge, tramping at intervals through lobbies to record his vote and wondering why he came to Westminster at all. Ambitious youth diverges into criticism and even hostility, or seeks an outlet for its energies elsewhere. Lord Randolph took scarcely any part in the Parliament of 1874. During its first three years he did not occupy more than an hour and a half of its time or attention. If he spoke at all, it was usually on matters connected with Woodstock. A question here and there, a few uncontroversial words during the debates on the Public Worship Regulation Bill, a sharp little impromptu speech on a motion for the release of Irish State prisoners in protest against an unkind comparison drawn by Mr. O’Connor Power between the soldiers who had become Fenians and the conduct of the first Duke of Marlborough in deserting William of Orange--these are almost the only references to his existence that ‘Hansard’ contains. At the end of May 1875 Sir Charles Dilke moved for a return of the unreformed Corporations of England, making special reference to the circumstances and behaviour of the excessively unreformed borough of Woodstock. He attacked its self-elected corporation, which gave no account of its dealings with its property and contributed apparently only a small proportion to public purposes. He denounced its Mayor--the landlord of a small public-house, let to him at an absurdly low rate by the Corporation--who, having been summoned and convicted under pressure from the inhabitants for permitting drinking on his premises after hours, had said: ‘I have always had a great respect for the police, but I shall never have again.’ This cruel indictment brought Lord Randolph to the rescue in an amusing speech, in which he exhibited such unexpected debating powers that it was alleged, and I dare say not without some truth, that he did not hear Sir Charles Dilke’s speech for the first time in the House of Commons. He explained that the Foresters had met at the King’s Arms and that ‘their business had been so important as to last beyond closing time.’ The application for the summons, he said, had been delayed because the police had been kept busy by the Shipton-on-Cherwell railway accident; the fines imposed had been trifling, and the Mayor had really said, ‘I have always thought highly of the police of Woodstock, and shall henceforth think more highly of them than ever’--a version of his remarks which, it must be admitted, would seem to have indicated a very high degree of civic virtue. Lord Randolph then justified the expenditure of the Corporation, and deprecated ‘the vivisection of an unfortunate Mayor and the persecution