was long time Conservative Whip. The late Colonel Taylour was made Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. The long services of Sir William Adam received niggardly reward by appointment to the Governorship of Madras.

In former times the Chief Government Whip, who still retains the style of Patronage Secretary, had a multitude of good things to give away. Beginning his career fifty years ago, and not having his steps directed towards the Woolsack, the Patronage Secretaryship would have just suited Lord Halsbury. Now the Patronage Secretaryship is, like friendship, "but a name." The Chief Whip has nothing in his wallet for hungry dependants, or for influential constituents -not even a tide-waitership or a country postmastership. Nevertheless the post of Whip continues to wield potent fascination for young, active, and ambitious members of the House. It is a life of constant, in the main, obscure drudgery.

The great gilt instrument that rests upon the table of the House of Commons, when the Speaker is in the Chair, is the third of its race. The first that lives in history has no birth-date. But its disappearance

The Mace.

is authoritatively recorded. On or about the very day when Charles I. lost his head on the scaffold, the Mace of the House of Commons disappeared. Probably some stern Roundhead, his Puritanic gorge rising at spectacle of a symbol, put the Mace in the melting-pot and the proceeds of the transaction in his pocket. However it be, the first Mace was seen in its resting-place on such and such a day, and, like ships posted up at Lloyd's, has not since been heard of.

When Cromwell came into power, and Parliamentary proceedings were resumed, he ordered another Mace to be made. This lives in history as the bauble which, later, Cromwell himself ordered to be taken away. His command was literally obeyed. The second Mace was so effectually removed that, like the first, it was never more seen or heard of.

The Mace which now glistens on the table of the House of Commons, and is carried before the Speaker when he visits the House of Lords, is of considerable antiquity. It was made in 1660, on the restoration of Charles II. It is watched over with infinite care, being through the Session in personal charge of the Serjeant-at-Arms. During the recess it is, as was the wont and usage of traitors in olden times, committed to the Tower, where it is guarded as not the least precious among the jewels of the Crown.

"Gone to

Whilst Lord Peel was yet Speaker of the House of Commons, he, from information received, was momentarily flushed with hope that Cromwell's Mace had been discovered in Jamaica. Diligent inquiry Jamaica." on the spot blighted this hope. It turned out that there are two Maces in the Colony, but they are comparatively

THE MACE OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.

modern, dating from the uninteresting Georgian period. One, like the lamp-posts in the neighbourhood of St. James's Palace, has stamped on its head the initials "G. R." There is the date-mark, 1753-4. The other is stamped with the King's head, and the date-mark 1757-8. Both are silver gilt.

The Speaker's inquiries brought to light the interesting fact that Jamaica at one time possessed a Mace presented to the Colony by Charles II. Doubtless it was ordered at the same time as the one at present in the House of Commons. It cost nearly £80, and was conveyed to Jamaica by Lord Windsor, the first Governor commissioned by Charles II. By an odd coincidence this Mace also disappeared. 1672 Jamaica suffered one of its not infrequent earthquakes. Parliament House was amongst the many public buildings in Port Royal that were engulfed. It is believed that King Charles's Mace went down with the rest. However it be, like Cromwell's bauble, it has vanished from human ken,

In

Referring to a recent note about a member of the present House of Commons, originally a clergyman of the Church of Baptism by England, who inadvertently united a blushing Immersion. bride with the best man instead of with the bridegroom, another member writes to remind me of even a worse case of absent-mindedness. The reverend gentleman in this case was George Dyer, an intimate friend of Charles Lamb. Early in his career he did duty as a Baptist minister, his ministration being on the whole not unattended with success. One day, performing the rite of baptism by total immersion, he fell into a train of profound thought, meanwhile holding an old woman under water till she was drowned.

This led to some unpleasantness, and Mr. Dyer retired from the ministry. But he never overcame his proneness to absent-mindedness. One night, on leaving Charles Lamb's hospitable house, he walked straight ahead out of the front door plump into the New River.

The Predica

Lord Rathmore has many good stories. One, not the worst, is autobiographical. Shortly after he was raised to the peerage he took a trip to the Riviera. The ment of a new French railway company, desirous to do honour Peer. to a distinguished English confrère, reserved a carriage for his private use. He made the most of the opportunity, getting a good sleep shortly after leaving Paris on the journey south. At some unknown hour of the night,

at some unrecognised station, the door of the carriage was suddenly opened. A lantern was flashed upon him, and a voice sharply cried, " Votre nom?"

Lord Rathmore, wakened out of his sleep, looking up in a partly dazed condition, discovered a railway official on his way round for tickets. Lord Rathmore's name was on the paper affixed to the window, marking the compartment as reserved. The official, in performance of his duty, and with that passion for regularising everything which besets Frenchmen in uniform, merely desired to identify the occupant of the carriage with the person to whose use it was inscribed.

"Votre nom?" he sternly repeated, seeing the passenger hesitate.

In response there sprang to Lord Rathmore's lips the familiar "David Plunket." Happily he remembered in time that he was no longer David Plunket, but for the life of him, wakened out of his sleep, and thus abruptly challenged, he

could not remember what title in the peerage he had selected.

Here was a pickle! Any one familiar with the arbitrary ways of the French railway official will know what would have happened supposing the passenger had confessed that he really did not know his own name. Cold sweat bedewed the forehead a coronet had not yet pressed. The new peer began to regret more bitterly than ever that he had left the House of Commons. The interval seemed half an hour. Probably it was only half a minute before recollection of his new name surged back upon him, and he hurriedly but gratefully pronounced it.

T

CHAPTER XXII

JUNE

THE Lobby does not yet look itself, lacking the cheery, bustling presence of poor Tom Ellis. It is a significant peculiarity, shared with very few members, that "Tom" Ellis. the late Liberal Whip was always spoken of by the diminutive of his Christian name. Another Whip, also

like Lydias and Tom Ellis dead ere his prime, won the distinction. Through the angriest days of Mr. Parnell's ruthless campaign against the dignity of Parliament and the stability of its ancient institutions, his cheery, warm-hearted, mirthloving Whip was always "Dick" Power. To-day we happily still have with us Sir Robert Threshie Reid, Q.C., sometime SolicitorGeneral, later Attorney-General, in the House of Commons always "Bob" Reid. These two instances show the kind of man the House delights to honour by this rare mark of friendly feeling.

TOM ELLIS.

It was a bold stroke on the part of Lord Rosebery, at the time Prime Minister, to promote the member for Merionethshire to the post of Chief Ministerial Whip on the submergence of Mr. Marjoribanks in the House of Lords.