[Illustration: ALSO RAN. WILLIAM. "ARE YOUR LURING THEM ON, LIKE ME?" MEHMED. "I'M AFRAID I AM!"] * * * * * ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT. _Monday, February 26th._--The new Member for Roscommon has not yet appeared in the House, but he is nevertheless doing his bit more effectively, perhaps, than some of his compatriots. The SPEAKER'S ruling is "No seat, no salary"; so Count PLUNKETT will have the satisfaction of knowing that by his self-sacrificing absence he is paying the expenses of the War for at least five seconds. With suitable solemnity Sir EDWARD CARSON gave a brief account of the exploits of the German destroyer squadrons. One of them, comprising several vessels, had engaged a single British destroyer for several minutes before cleverly executing a strategic movement in the direction of the German coast; while another had simultaneously bombarded the strongholds of Broadstairs and Margate, completely demolishing two entire houses. The damage would have been still more serious but for the fortunate circumstance that the fortresses erected on the foreshore last summer by an army of youthful workpeople had been subsequently removed. Any gloom engendered by the fore-going announcement was quickly dissipated by Mr. BONAR LAW, who read a telegram from General MAUDE, announcing the fall of Kut-el-Amara. The rest of the afternoon was chiefly occupied by a further combat over the merits of Lord FISHER. Although, as Dr. MACNAMARA subsequently remarked, "this is not the time for fighting battles along the Whitehall front," I am afraid the House thoroughly enjoyed Sir HEDWORTH MEUX'S discursive account of his relations with the late FIRST SEA LORD, who really seems to be quite a forgiving person. At least it is not everybody who, after being greeted at a garden-party with "Come here, you wicked old sinner," would afterwards invite his accuser to lunch at the Ritz. In the first statement of policy made by Mr. LLOYD GEORGE after his appointment as Prime Minister he said that the primary step towards a settlement of an age-long Irish trouble would be the removal of the suspicion of Irishmen by Irishmen. Mr. DILLON'S notion of contributing to that desirable end is to accuse Sir BRYAN MAHON, who has had to deport certain recidivist Sinn Feiners, of being the tool of a Dublin Castle gang. Not, of course, that Mr. DILLON is in sympathy with Sinn Feiners; on the contrary he dislikes them so much that he would like to keep St. George's Channel between them and himself. But by his own speeches he has hypnotized himself into the belief that everything done by the British Government in Ireland must have a corrupt motive. His colleague from West Belfast is not much wiser, to judge by the tone of his speech to-night; and I think Mr. DUKE, who is doing his best to reconcile the irreconcilable, must have been tempted to adapt one of MR. DILLON'S phrases and to say that Ireland was between the DEVLIN and the deep sea.