etical list of human occupations contained the "Trades" section of the Post Office ndon Directory and I can find none for ich my boy has ever given me any reason believe, or even to hope, that he possesses e slightest aptitude." And the old gentlen humorously went on to remark that the ly way in which a lad of his son's shiftless d listless habits could hope to earn an nest livelihood would be for him to tation himself at the door of a post-office th his tongue out," for the convenience of rsons desiring to stamp their letters.

King Charles II. of lively if inglorious emory was fond, as is well known, of tending the debates of his Parliament, and as accustomed to remark that "they were good as a play." It would be difficult I, ink,to trace any resemblance-unless indeed regards freedom of manners and indecorum of language. between the Parliamentary oceedings of the present day and the Comedy of the Restoration. The House of Commons contains many performers such

for instance Dr. Tanner, Mr. Healy, and hers-who are fully qualified to assume the part of the Plain Dealer at a moment's netice, and indeed are in the habit of doing to an extent which sometimes brings them under the censure of a Speaker who declines to enter into the dramatic spirit of the situation; but it must be admitted that their share in the dialogue is, though vigorous, considerably less pointed than Wycherley has put in the mouth of Manley. Still they are vivacious, these gentlemen below the gangway, which is more than can be said for the crowds of their English colleagues,estimable, earnest, middle-aged,-who are yearly entering Parliament in increasing numbers, and with no intention of hiding the mild radiance of their statesmanship under the bushel-or, according to more modern measurements, say the peck

of their modesty. Some of these have made their way into the assembly from motives wholly identical with those which have prompted so many enterprising men of business to decorate the dead walls and hoardings of the metropolis, free of all charge to the citizen, with colossal studies of the human form. Others more worthily inspired have sought and procured election to the Legislature with the same object as induces men of means and benevolence to otain places on the Committees of Charitable Societies. To both these classes of philantropists, to the man who desires to benefit is fellow-creatures, and to him who is

content to start from humbler beginnings by advancing himself, speech and constant speech is necessary; and to neither of them is the mere intellectual quality of that speech of the slightest importance; to neither of them is it a matter of the smallest concern to interest instead of boring their hearers. To both of them the mere excellence of its object appears the ample justification of the severest experiment on the patience of their fellow-men. A report however brief in the London newspapers, with a fuller one in the local press of his constituency, is the sufficient reward of the one orator; the mere approval of his own philanthropic conscience satisfies the other. And when we remember how large a proportion of the words spoken in the House of Commons proceeds from speakers of this description, it is easy to understand what has happened to "Parliamentary debate" in the proper sense of the term. Debating is an art, and an art requires artists to practise it; and the artist, even if he may be made and need not necessarily be born, is not to be made simply by the votes of a certain majority of the free and independent electors of a Parliamentary constituency. constituency. In former days, and indeed down till less than twenty years ago, this truth was so well understood that the debaters in the House of Commons were tacitly recognized by their fellow-senators as members of a distinct craft, guild, or mystery, admission to whose ranks was sternly denied to any one who did not possess, or who did not show capacity for acquiring, proficiency in the art. With those who in the absence of these qualifications insisted on joining in debate--or at least in debate of the old goodas-a-play description, for of course experts however dull were always listened to with respect in suâ arte-the House had a very summary method of dealing. It suppressed them by inarticulate noises, and in all but an infinitesimal number of cases they submitted to suppression. Their successful revolt was originally inspired by a person who can have had no direct intention of doing so though perhaps he might have contemplated the possibility of the result with some malicious pleasure. It was the work of Mr. Parnell. When that eminent Parliamentary strategist, then in command of a compact army of five followers, commenced his campaign of " exasperation," it was imagined by the innocent Commons of that day that this little band of Obstructives, after making itself moderately disagreeable, would yield with grace to the coughs, groans, and cries of "'vide! 'vide! 'vide!" which

had hitherto been the uniformly successful method of conveying to Parliamentary talkers that the House wished them to cease talking and allow business to proceed. To their astonishment they found that Mr. Parnell had no intention of yielding to these remonstrances, and they further learnt to their discomfiture that four or five resolute men with an object in view, and relieving one another, find it much easier to continue talking than it is for three or four hundred other men, unorganized and of various degrees of resolution, to continue coughing, groaning, and crying "'vide, 'vide, 'vide." On this discovery they of course yielded. Taking the only course open to them, they quitted the House when Obstruction began, and left the Obstructionists in possession of the field. The effects of the inevitable surrender were more far-reaching than the vanquished or even perhaps than the victor, imagined. Slowly it dawned upon the mind of the hitherto silenced bore that he also was a man with lungs and legs as stout as those of an Irishman-that he too could maintain the erect position and continue to articulate words until the House should be reduced to the condition of the wedding-guest under the glittering eye of the Ancient Mariner and when that disastrous truth had once dawned upon the mind of the hitherto silenced bore-well, all was over. From that discovery the House of Commons may date the foundation of the tyranny under which it groans-or rather has ceased to groan on finding it quite useless to do so. To this discovery it is due that the proceedings in that assembly, so far from being as good as a play, have become slightly more tedious-when they do not acquire the reprehensible liveliness of disorder-than a Scotch service. There were many persons who had little reason to wish well to Charles II. from his forgiving wife downwards; but it may be doubted whether any of them-Clarendon, Russell, Sydney, the London Bankers, the City Corporation, or the inhabitants of Sheerness--would have been vindictive enough, if they could have foreseen what his Majesty's "play" would come to in a couple of centuries, to have avenged their wrongs by condemning him to sit throughout the ages as a shadowy spectator of its humours.

It is pleasant to be reminded by meetings of what is sometimes called the Cricket Parliament, a strange name for so practical and business-like a body as the Marylebone Club-that the cricket season is at hand.

"May it not pass away without either a complishing or ripening for accomplishme a reform which lies very near to the hea of all true lovers of the noble game, I allu to the burning question of leg before wicket So wrote recently a learned and enthusiast commentator on these high matters; an though his impassioned prose is not at t command of every one, it must be admitte by all that things have come to a pret pass or rather to an ugly impasse-whe bowlers cannot reach the wicket because t batsman, driving a coach and six through rule against such conduct made and provide has adopted the unworthy practice of inte posing a padded shin between the ball an its goal. Not thus did the cricketers of of time defend stumps with stumps; it was a extension of the "doctrine of similars" whic they would not have countenanced for a instant. And the rule which forbids th mode of guarding the wicket would in tho days have effectually prevented them fro doing so. But alas for the imperfection of a human invention! Alas for the seed of evil all things good! Had it not been for the inver tion of round-armed bowling-that enormou stride in scientific cricket comparable on to the revolution in modern warfare effecte by the breechloading rifle-there could hard have arisen the difficulty about "leg before In the old days of the underhand bowler, ball which pitched "in a line between th hand and the wicket " and one which pitche in "a line between wicket and wicket" wer in almost all cases one and the same thing But nowadays, when a ball which pitche straight between wicket and wicket woul usually miss the wicket altogether, t umpire's decision can seldom be successfull invoked in the one case in which his oppor tunity of knowing whether the batsman ha really intercepted with his leg or body a ba which would have bowled him out is bette than that of any player in the game, eve the bowler himself included. In the majorit of the cases in which he is appealed to reall he is almost as little able, from the positio in which he stands, to pronounce with ce tainty on the question submitted to him a any one else in the field. And as to allov ing him to "give" a batsman "out" every case in which a ball, pitched admitted! off his wicket, is "working" in or "breakin back" towards the wicket at the tin when it strikes the batsman's leg or bod the objections to that are many and grav The problem is a most difficult one, and it wi need all the acumen of the Cricket Parliame to compass its satisfactory solution.

H. D. TRAILL.