A marked improvement in the conduct of modern debate is to be noticed in the comparatively inoffensive character of the epithets used by members with reference to their opponents. The decencies of debate are, as a rule, religiously observed. Recriminations are rare. Measures are attacked, not men. The secession of a statesman is considered a political but not a personal offence, and what Palmerston once called the "puerile vanity of consistency" is no longer worshipped fanatically. Gladstone rightly called the House of Commons a "school of temper," as well as a school of honour and of justice. Offensive allusions have always been deprecated there, but it is only within the last few score years that members have controlled their tongues to any appreciable extent in this direction. Hasty remarks are nowadays withdrawn at the first suggestion of the Speaker, though on occasion an apology may be as offensive as the original insult. Lord Robert Cecil (afterwards Lord Salisbury) said of a speech of Gladstone's in 1861, that it was "worthy of a pettifogging attorney." Soon afterwards he rose in the House, and said that he wished to apologise for a remark he had lately made. "I observed that the speech of the right hon. gentleman was worthy of a pettifogging attorney," he said, "and I now hasten to offer my apologies--to the attornies!" It is usual nowadays to wrap up offensive criticisms in a more or less palatable covering, to attack by inference rather than by direct assault. "I am no party man," said Colonel Sibthorpe, member for Lincoln, after the dissolution of Sir Robert Peel's Government. "I have never acted from party feelings; but I must say I do not like the countenances of honourable gentlemen opposite, for I believe them to be the index of their minds. I can only say, in conclusion, that I earnestly hope that God will grant the country a speedy deliverance from such a band."[310] This is a good example of an unpleasant thing framed in a manner which does not lay it open to the stigma of disorderly language, and is just as effective as that oft-quoted attack made by a member of the Irish House of Commons on George Ponsonby (afterwards Irish Chancellor), whose sister was sitting in the gallery at the time. "These Ponsonbys are the curse of my country," said the member; "they are prostitutes, personally and politically--from the toothless old hag who is now grinning in the gallery to the white-livered scoundrel who is now shivering on the floor!"[311] [310] Grant's "Recollections," p. 140. [311] Hayward's "Essays," pp. 364-5. [Illustration: THE HOUSE OF COMMONS IN WALPOLE'S DAY FROM THE ENGRAVING BY A. FOGG THE FIGURES FROM LEFT TO RIGHT ARE:--SIR ROBERT WALPOLE, THE RT. HON. ARTHUR ONSLOW, SYDNEY GODOLPHIN (FATHER OF THE HOUSE), SIR JOSEPH JEKYL, COL. ONSLOW, EDWARD STABLES, ESQ. (CLERK OF HOUSE OF COMMOMS), SIR JAMES THORNHILL, MR. AISKEW (CLERK ASSISTANT)]