set Curson at him-no better hand than Curson for throttling a contumacious puppy! And stay-did not the jackanapes publish a volume of poems lately? By Jove, he did! I'll take care that M'Fang gives him a regular trouncing in the Review."

So Messieurs Curson and M'Fang, the Trois Eschelles and Petit André of the Treasury, to whom the congenial duty of branding malefactors is intrusted, are let loose upon the delinquent! After which it is superfluous to say that there is very little chance indeed of the return of the Prodigal Son.

No matter what may be the amount of his ability, the extent of his rhetorical genius, or the measure of his dexterity in effecting combinations, no Minister can hope to become a permanent leader, unless he also possesses the rare and valuable art of securing the confidence of his party. Without that, his power, however great it may appear to be, rests upon a slippery foundation. Like those Continental despots who but yesterday exercised supreme authority, and to-day are fugitives and despised, he will ultimately find himself without any following beyond the few who are inseparably identified with his policy. With it, he may be defeated over and over again, be forced from office and power, be subjected to the bitterest attacks that hostility or malice can devise-and yet, by virtue of that loyalty and devotion which set falsehood at defiance, and which adversity cannot extinguish, he may achieve a triumph greater and more complete than if he never had sustained a check in the course of his political

career. And the way to estimate the amount of party confidence which each statesman really possesses, is, not to ask the opinion of old and jaded officials, but

to

gage the sentiments of the young, the enthusiastic, and the brave. The man with whom they declare themselves ready to stand or fall, of whose honour and integrity no doubt ever crossed their minds, who not only commands their admiration but engages their love that man is indeed a leader and a prince, and beyond that unpurchased confidence fortune has no higher gift, no mightier treasure, to bestow.

CHAPTER VII.

RAILWAY MORALS.

My duty as observer and chronicler of the progress of the railway movement led me often to Westminster, where the committee-rooms exhibited a most extraordinary spectacle. It has been doubted by many persons, whose practical experience was such as to give great weight to their opinion, whether committees of either House of Parliament were the best tribunals which could have been devised for adjudicating upon what were, in reality, gigantic public works, albeit promoted by private enterprise and capital. I confess, after mature deliberation on what I have seen, that I more than participate in such doubts, and that I have arrived at the conclusion that Parliament, in order to retain the confidence and command the respect of the nation, must sooner or later delegate no inconsiderable portion of its powers to be exercised by a judicial body, as remote from influence and as little liable to suspicion as are the judges of the land. We have arrived now-indeed, we arrived long since-at this discredit

able position, that only a fractional part of the public business, which Ministers have declared to be urgent, can be carried through in the course of a protracted session. Some measures, specially recommended in the Speech from the Throne to the consideration of Parliament, are abandoned from sheer lack of time to pass them through the formal stages; whilst others, equally important, and affecting large interests, are hurried forward with precipitate and indecent haste, which precludes the possibility of objection, or of a fair and impartial discussion. In fact, more work is thrust before Parliament than it can, under any circumstances, overtake. Even if the whole body of members was composed of men of first-rate business talent, resolute for despatch, never wandering from the point immediately before them, and eschewing talking for mere talking's sake, they could not accomplish the feat of satisfactorily disposing of the whole enormous programme. But we know very well that, for one man possessed of such qualifications, there are at least. three quidnuncs who are absolute obstacles to business; being either inveterate chatterers, whose sole object it is to have their speeches reported in the papers, or stolid monomaniacs, who advocate some monstrous impracticability, or cankered objectors-general, who consider it their duty to challenge every proposition. Night after night is the time of the great council of the nation abused and frittered away by those merciless and intolerable pests; and the consideration of public business is continually postponed to an hour,

long before the arrival of which honest men, who are not connected with Parliament, have sought the solace of their pillows.

In the days of the railway mania, so numerous were the applications to Parliament that the majority of the House of Commons were drafted out into committees to hear, yawn, and determine. Unless the prevalent idea that judicial talent is comparatively rare be altogether erroneous, it would seem difficult to defend an arrangement which left interests representing millions of capital and realised property to the tender mercies of gentlemen who were for the most part utterly ignorant of the rules of evidence, unused to be addressed by lawyers, apt to be confounded and puzzled by details, sometimes actuated by prejudice, and always liable to be swayed by external influences. No man, who had a personal cause of his own impending, would have selected such a tribunal; but it was deemed quite good enough for companies who were claiming a monopoly, and for proprietors who were defending their possessions. And as if to make the thing more glaringly absurd, the ordinary judicial safeguards were dispensed with. No oath was administered to witnesses, who, being thus relieved from the moral guilt and final consequences of perjury, did certainly oftentimes hazard the most astounding assertions. I shall not go the length of saying that false evidence was given as to what was strictly matter of fact; but as to matters of opinion, there was amazing discrepancy. Engineer testified against engineer