up public opinion against the “ship-knackers,” as he called them, who, having over-insured vessels that were rotten, sent them away to founder at sea with their crews, and then put the insurance money in their pockets. The Board of Trade had rather frowned on his efforts to get it to detain unseaworthy ships for survey, but in deference to popular pressure the Government had promised to bring in a Merchant Shipping Bill to check the evil which Mr. Plimsoll had discovered and denounced. The Bill was read a second time in the Commons without opposition, and it was one in which the Queen was said to be as much interested as Mr. Plimsoll himself. But Mr. Disraeli had brought forward a measure permitting farmers to receive compensation for unexhausted improvements, and enabling landlords to deny them this compensation by contracting themselves out of the Bill. He had contrived to get Government business into confusion by trying to push on Ministerial measures abreast instead of in single file, and in a fatal moment he shelved the Merchant Shipping Bill, in order to make way for the perfectly worthless Agricultural Holdings Bill. He announced the fact on the 22nd of July, when Mr. Goschen entered a mild protest. Mr. Plimsoll, however, rose quivering with rage and passion, and moved the adjournment of the House. He not only protested against the Government postponing a Bill that interfered with “the unhallowed gains” of the “shipknackers,” but said that some of them sat in the House, and mentioned by name one of “the villains” he was determined to “unmask.” In vain the Speaker called him to order. Louder and louder grew the turmoil, and in the midst of it Mr. Disraeli grew visibly pale when Mr. Plimsoll rushed up the floor of the House with his clenched fist extended in front of him. However, he did not strike the Premier or Sir Charles Adderley--who was officially in charge of the Bill--as had been dreaded. He merely stood on one leg, placed a written protest on the table, and then, having shaken his fist in the Speaker’s face, marched out of the Chamber amidst a scene of terrible disorder. Mr. Disraeli lost his temper and, with it, touch of the House for a moment. In angry accents he moved that Mr. Plimsoll be reprimanded there and then, whereupon the Speaker interfered, and said that before a motion of that sort could be put Mr. Plimsoll, who was now standing below the bar, must be heard in his place. Mr. Plimsoll, however, preferred immediate withdrawal, and the House was on the eve of entering into conflict with a defiant Member, supported by an irresistible force of democratic passion in the country, a conflict from which it must have emerged with impaired authority, when suddenly Lord Hartington came to the rescue. His frigid accents, in strong contrast with Mr. Disraeli’s tremulous tones of wrath, immediately cooled the temper of the House. Mr. Plimsoll was, said Lord Hartington, merely suffering from “overstrain acting on a very