a tenant’s improvements into the valuation on which a fair rent was fixed, the Judges, by a decision in the case of Adams v. Dunseath, virtually nullified the clause. It was not till the 29th of July that Mr. Gladstone carried the Third Reading of the Bill after a desperate struggle. The House of Lords mutilated it, so that it became worse than useless, and then there came a deep cry of indignation from the country. Mr. Gladstone sent the Bill back practically unaltered, and as the tempest of anger in the country rose the Peers surrendered and let the measure pass. The Ministry, however, had to drop all their other Bills, except those abolishing flogging in the Army and Navy. The only private Members who carried Bills of public interest were Mr. Hutchinson and Mr. Roberts. Mr. Hutchinson’s Bill protected newspaper reports of lawful meetings from prosecution for libel, and made it necessary to obtain the Attorney-General’s sanction before criminal proceedings for libel could be asked for. Mr. Roberts passed the Act closing public-houses during Sundays in Wales. Mr. Bradlaugh’s case, however, again vexed the angry sea of political strife at intervals during the Session. The law courts ruled that he could not legally make an affirmation, and so Mr. Bradlaugh resigned his seat, and again got elected for Northampton. This time he presented himself on the 26th of April to be sworn as a new Member. Sir Stafford Northcote objected, and though no precedent exists for preventing a new Member from being sworn, the Speaker referred the matter to the House, which decided against Mr. Bradlaugh. Thereupon ensued a shocking scene, and Mr. Bradlaugh had to be removed by force. Nothing strikes the reader now as more absurd than the protestations of the Tories, that to concede this claim was to sanction sacrilege. The course they objected to was precisely the one which Mr. Bradlaugh adopted when they were in office in 1886, and which they and the Speaker found it expedient to permit. A Bill was now brought in to allow all Members to affirm who could not conscientiously take the oath. This was opposed and so successfully obstructed that it had to be dropped. After that Mr. Bradlaugh, on the 3rd of August, cheered by an immense crowd of sympathisers, attempted to enter the House in defiance of an order which Sir Stafford Northcote had carried excluding him from its precincts. There were some of his Radical sympathisers--Mr. Fawcett was among the number--who did not quite approve of this proceeding. At all events Mr. Bradlaugh gained nothing by it, for he was flung into Palace Yard by the police hatless, dishevelled, and with his coat torn in the fray.