‘He is short-necked, and his head is one of the largest I have seen. His hair, of dark brown tipped with grey, is long and bushy; his face fat and round, and his complexion has that rough, healthy aspect common among gentlemen-farmers.’ Hume was impervious to ridicule or sarcasm, heedless of abuse however virulent. It was calculated that in the course of a session he delivered more speeches than the aggregate of any other three members. On a May night, when the House was in Committee on Civil Service Estimates, he spoke for forty minutes. His hat played a prominent part in these parliamentary incursions. He invariably brought it into the House cram-full of papers. When he rose to speak he planted it out on the bench or floor within arm’s length, as if it were a cabbage. When he interposed to make a passing remark, he had an odd trick of putting his hat under his left arm at an angle that dexterously precluded its contents tumbling out on the floor. There is somewhere in existence a caricature sketch of him by H.B. thus possessed of his hat. In his ordinary attire he lightened up his speeches, which though learned were a little dull, by presentation of a compact costume of a blue coat, a tartan waistcoat, and the apparently popular light-coloured ‘cassimere trousers.’ Roebuck, in his thirty-third year, was a member of this House. Here is a pen-picture of him: ‘He is much under the middle size, so slender withal that he has quite a boyish appearance. His countenance is pale and sickly, with very little flesh on it. His nose is rather prominent; his eyes are disproportionately large and sunken. There is a scowl so visibly impressed on his brow that the merest novice in physiognomy must observe it. He is not a favourite in the House, and the limited popularity he has acquired out of doors seems to be on the decline.’ Q evidently did not like Roebuck, who, when more than forty years later he reappeared on the parliamentary scene as Member for Sheffield, disclosed a natural talent for getting himself disliked. He came back with the flood of Toryism that in the General Election of 1874 swamped Mr. Gladstone. Dillwyn, an old and generally esteemed member, secured the corner seat below the gangway on the Opposition side, a place made historic in a later Parliament by the occupancy of Lord Randolph Churchill. Roebuck hankered after this seat, which he might have obtained by the regulation process of attendance at prayer-time. He preferred to arrive later and turn out Dillwyn, making himself otherwise pleasant by prodding his stick along the back of the bench, regardless of the presence of honourable members.