After this I quite expected to read that some one-- ... raised a point of order, when A chunk of old red sandstone took him in the abdomen, And he smiled a sort of sickly smile and curled upon the floor! And the subsequent proceedings interested him no more. But the matter seems to have dropped, and everything to have ended peacefully--a great and bitter disappointment to all lovers of ructions. * * * * * Even in aquatic matters Ireland is a country of surprises. In the Eight-oared race the other day for the "Pembroke Cup," there was a dead-heat between the Shandon Boat Club and the Dublin University Boat Club. In the row-off, the _Irish Independent_ says that "Boat Club caught the water first, but after a few strokes Shandon forged in front. After the mile mark, Shandon were rowing eighteen against the Boat Club's nineteen or twenty. In the next three hundred yards Boat Club dropped to seventeen, the others being steady at nineteen all through. About one hundred and fifty yards off the fishery step the Boat Club quickened up to forty and got within two feet of their opponents. Then, amid the greatest excitement, Boat Club got in front and won by a canvas." A stroke oar who can row a race at nineteen to the minute all through is steadier but certainly less versatile than one who can spring suddenly from the rate of seventeen to the rate of forty. As admirable as either is the genius of the reporter who describes the event. * * * * * Mr. H. M. HYNDMAN is the Socialist candidate for Burnley. He advocates "the immediate nationalisation and socialisation of railways, mines, factories, and the land, with a view to establishing organised co-operation for production and distribution in every department under the control of the entire community. There should be a minimum wage of thirty shillings a week in all State and Municipal employment, as well as in State-created monopolies." There's a modest and practical programme for you! But this windy gentleman's opponents may reply that they prefer the system of each for himself, and d----l take the HYNDMAN, to all the verbiage of the Socialist froth-pot. * * * * * Many reasons have been given for the fall of the late Government. It has been left to a correspondent of the _Birmingham Daily Post_ to discover the real and only one. "It is most unfair," he says, "to hold them entirely responsible for all the shortcomings, blunders, and failures which distorted their administration. How could they help these things? Has it never occurred to you that the Government of Lord ROSEBERY was the '13th' Parliament of Queen VICTORIA? Can anybody reasonably expect good government from a 13th Parliament? It is out of all question." What _persiflage_, what wit! * * * * *