When Sir Robert said he should keep on the income-tax for three years longer, almost the whole House fell into fits of delight at his goodness. You might have seen Whig embracing Tory, Radical throwing his arms about the neck of Conservative, and Young England with tears of gratitude rolling like butter-milk down upon his white waistcoat. When Sir Robert had quite finished his speech, there was a shower of nosegays flung upon him from the Treasury benches, just in the same way as now and then you pelt the actors at the playhouses! Sir Robert picked ’em all up, and pressed ’em to his heart, and from the corners of his mouth smiled the thousand thanks. Then sitting down, he very handsomely gave a flower apiece to what he calls his colleagues. He insisted--amidst the cheers of the House--on putting a forget-me-not in the button-hole of Mr Gladstone (who sobbed audibly at the touch of friendship); and then he handed a lily--as an emblem of the Home Secretary’s reputation--to Sir James Graham. At this, I needn’t tell you, there were “roars of laughter.” To be sure, at this season of the year these flowers were artificial; but for which reason, it was said by somebody, they were more in keeping with Sir Robert’s measures. Two or three members--for form’s sake--abused the income-tax, but nevertheless said they would vote for it. Lord John Russell called it a shameful, infamous, ignominious, tyrannical, prying impost: he would, however, support it. This is as if a man should denounce another as a coward, a ruffian, and a thief, and then--fold him to his bosom! But they do odd things in Parliament. Sir Robert says we are to have the income-tax for only three years longer. Nonsense! He intends that we should grow with it upon us. He’ll no more take it off than a Chinese mother will take off the little shoe that, for the beauty of the full-grown woman, she puts upon the foot of her baby girl. The child may twist, and wriggle, and squall; and the mother may now and then say pretty things--make pretty promises to it to keep it quiet--but the shoe’s there for the sufferer’s life. Now John Bull--thinks Sir Robert Peel--will move all the better with his foot in the income-tax: all the better too, because it most galls and crushes a lower member. However, we are to have the duty off glass; which, says Sir Robert, is much better than if the duty were taken off light. It is not for such as me to dispute with a minister, but I can’t see how, if I’m to get my house glazed duty free, it’s quite as good as if there was no window-tax. To be sure, if a man, as a householder, were to new glaze himself from top to bottom once a quarter, it might be another thing; he might save upon the glass what he now pays for the sun that, in London, tries to come through it. He may certainly afford to have more windows, but will, I say, the saving on the glass pay for the light? Besides, not light alone, but air is paid for. There is at the present time a secret