"In fact," said Lord Palmerston, turning round to face Mr. Horsman, seated at the corner bench below the Gangway, "_my right hon. friend has had his ear at the keyhole of the wrong door_." THE PARLIAMENTARY OLD GUARD. I have received a sheaf of correspondence arising out of the article in the February number, cataloguing the Old Guard who were in the House of Commons twenty years ago and stand there to-day. One or two demand acknowledgment as adding to the information there garnered. Mr. Thomas Whitworth, of Liverpool, a member of the House of Commons from 1869 to 1874, has made independent investigation, with the result of adding several to the names I gave. These are Sir Charles Dalrymple, Mr. Duff (who has just retired from Parliament on his appointment to the Governorship of New South Wales), Sir Julian Goldsmid, Sir John Hibbert, Sir J. W. Pease, Mr. J. G. Talbot, Mr. Abel Smith, and Mr. James Round. Mr. Whitworth adds Mr. Charles Seeley. That is an error, since Mr. Seeley does not sit in the present Parliament--having been defeated at the General Election when he stood for the Rushcliffe Division of Nottinghamshire. [Illustration: MR. DUFF.] "Sir Thomas Lea (not Mr. Lea) was, in 1873," Mr. Whitworth writes, "member for Kidderminster, and is the only English member of that date who has changed into an Irish one." The present member for Londonderry was certainly "Mr." Lea in 1873, his baronetcy dating from 1892, being one of the recognitions made by Lord Salisbury of the services of the Dissentient Liberal allies. The reference to Sir William Dyke as Liberal Whip was, as the context shows, an obvious slip of the pen, Sir William having been for many years prominent in the Conservative ranks as an able Whip. One of the late Mr. Miall's kinsmen points out that "it was Edward Miall, M.P. for Bradford, not Charles," who, side by side with the late Mr. Fawcett, fought Mr. Gladstone on the Irish University Bill, and did much to bring about the subsequent _débâcle_ of the Liberals. Finally, Mr. Johnston, of Ballykilbeg, writes from the House of Commons: "In your interesting paper, 'From Behind the Speaker's Chair,' in THE STRAND MAGAZINE for this month, you say, 'Mr. Johnston, still of Ballykilbeg, but no longer a Liberal, as he ranked twenty years ago.' In politics I am to-day what I was twenty years ago. Always anxious to vote for measures for the good of the country, and sometimes being in the Lobby with Liberals, I never belonged to that party. Mr. Disraeli, in a letter which I have, expressed his regret that I should have been opposed, in 1868, by some Belfast Conservatives, and did all in his power to prevent this. I was always, as he knew, and Lord Rowton knows, a loyal follower of Disraeli." [Illustration: MR. JOHNSTON.]