The Cornhill Magazine (vol. XLII, no. 251 new series, May 1917) — John Shaqi
The Cornhill Magazine (vol. XLII, no. 251 new series, May 1917)Various
History
The Cornhill Magazine (vol. XLII, no. 251 new series, May 1917)
Various
England -- Periodicals; English literature -- Periodicals; Short stories, English -- Periodicals
The nearest approach to this scene I remember happened in the last
session of the Parliament of 1868-74, when, amidst similar uproar,
Cavendish Bentinck, as one describing at the time the uproar wrote, ‘went
out behind the Speaker’s Chair and crowed thrice.’ This was the occasion
upon which Sir Charles Dilke made his Parliamentary début. In Committee
of Ways and Means he, in uncompromising fashion that grated on the ears
of loyalists, called attention to the Civil List of Queen Victoria and
moved a reduction. Auberon Herbert, now a staid Tory, at that time
suspected of a tendency towards Republicanism, undertook to second the
amendment. Sir Charles managed amid angry interruptions to work off his
speech. Herbert, following him, was met by a storm of resentment that
made his sentences inaudible.
After uproar had prevailed for a full quarter of an hour a shamefaced
member, anxious for the dignity of the Mother of Parliaments, called
attention to the presence of strangers. Forthwith, in accordance with the
regulation then in force, the galleries were cleared. As the occupants
of the Press Gallery reluctantly departed, they heard above the shouting
the sound of cock-crowing. Looking over the baluster they saw behind
the Chair Little Ben, as Cavendish Bentinck was called to distinguish
him from his bigger kinsman, vigorously engaged upon a vain effort to
preserve order by a passable imitation of Chanticleer saluting the happy
morn.
From ‘Q’s’ report of another outbreak of disorder it would appear that in
the House meeting in the ‘thirties of the nineteenth century, exchange of
personalities went far beyond modern experience. The once heated Maynooth
question was to the fore. In the course of an animated set-to between a
Mr. Shaw and Daniel O’Connell, the former shouted ‘The Hon. Member has
charged me with being actuated by spiritual ferocity. My ferocity is not
of the description which takes for its symbol a death’s head and cross
bones.’ O’Connell, as a certain fishwife locally famous for picturesque
language discovered, was hard to beat in the game of vituperation.
Turning upon Shaw, he retorted ‘Yours is a calf’s head and jaw bones.’
‘Q’ records that the retort was greeted with deafening cheers from the
Ministerial side where O’Connell and his party were seated. Mr. Shaw’s
polite, but perhaps inconsequential, remark had been received with equal
enthusiasm by the Opposition.
_AFTER THE BATTLE._
BY BENNET COPPLESTONE.
‘Caesar,’ said a Sub-lieutenant to his friend, a temporary Lieutenant
R.N.V.R., who at the outbreak of war had been a classical scholar at
Oxford, ‘you were in the thick of our scrap yonder off the Jutland coast.
You were in it every blessed minute with the battle cruisers, and must
have had a lovely time. Did you ever, Caesar, try to write the story of
it?’
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