interrupt a gentleman when he's speaking. And
yet I don't wonder, neither. What opportunities
have these boys had of knowing better?
Their fathers kept working ten hours a day
instead of nine, of course they've no time to
teach them better. Poor boys, I pity them! I
pity them; but I reprobate and defy those who
have brought them to this state, and who like
to keep them in it too, for fear their minds
should develop, and they should feel their own
power. That's what the governing classes are
afraid of. But how long, do you think, they'll
be able to keep the people back like this? that's
what I want to know. I ask that member of
parliament" (shouted the speaker, stretching out
his arm and addressing an imaginary senator, but
unconsciously again directing popular attention
to the "young man," who was now given up as
a cabinet-maker, and invested with a seat in
the House of Commons by the populace)—"I
ask that member of Parliament, steeped as he is
to the neck in precedents, in formalities, in
red-tape, and in what we all understand better, in
BOSH—I ask him, is he not afraid of the PEOPLE?
I ask that bishop" (here the populace gave
the young man up in disgust—he couldn't be a
bishop)—"I ask that bishop, with his lawn
sleeves, and his apron, his mitre, and his seat
in the House of Lords, among the miscalled
nobility—isn't he afraid of the PEOPLE ? And
what do they tell me?" (continued the orator
with that glorious privilege which the solitary
speaker, whether clerical or otherwise, possesses
of making his opponents answer what he pleases)
—what do they tell me ?—what are they obliged
to tell me?—what do I force from them, whether
they like it or not?—that they are afraid of the
people; afraid of their power, of their slumbering
passions, of their unawakened intellect!"

Here the speaker diverged into an analysis
of the deficiencies of all the principal politicians
of the day, disposing of each, in but a few words,
as inadequate to his post, and interspersing the
diatribe with numerous questions, which every
M.P. was, of course, wholly helpless to reply to.
At length, when every name of any celebrity,
and some of no celebrity at all, had been
disposed of, and had all been set down as in their
dotage, or otherwise incapable, a captious
gentleman in the crowd took upon him to inquire
"What it was the speaker was driving at? You
are putting heverythink down," said this
individual, "and what do you set hup?—nothink."
("Hear!" from several friends.)

"That's just what I'm coming to, if you'd
only have patience," retorted the lecturer.
"First of all, I've proved to you that all these
governing classes are unfit tor their functions"—
(A Voice: "No you haven't!"—"and now I mean
to show you one or two who might supply their
places." (Yourself, I suppose," cried the voice
heard just before.) " No, not myself.  It isn't
for me to blow my own trumpet. I leave others
to do that for me; and I'm glad to find that in
some of those journals which espouse the right
cause, my merits are recognised, and my
remarks supported and quoted by the enlightened
editors of those journals; but it isn't for me to
speak of myself. I could mention to you the
names of parties who deserve the public confidence
—parties whom all enlightened politicians
are looking to as the coming men." ("Name,
name!" from several voices.) "There are
parties at this moment, standing in this very
assembly, who would do honour to any cause."
("Name!") " Well, I've no objection to name."
(Voice: "Well, why don't you?")  "I will
name the name of SQUILLARS." (Loud cries of
" Who is he?" " Never heard of him!" " Let
him show himself!" "Put him up on the
bench!") " That's the name I would put
forward. Who is wanted to save this country?
—Squillars! Who is wanted for naval reform?
—Squillars! Who is wanted for reducing the
enormous expenditure of the country?—Squillars!
Who is wanted to arrange the difficulties
of the strike, to prevent the recurrence of an
Indian famine, to reduce the price of butcher's
meat, to promote the education of the masses,
and to harmonise and weld together all the
conflicting elements which threaten to explode
among us? To all these questions I answer in
one word—SQUILLARS!"

A pause succeeded this announcement, and
the public, bewildered by this tremendous
eulogy, seemed to be thinking to itself whether
it really did not know all about Squillars, and
had forgotten, when a gentleman among the
crowd, whose calmness under the gaze of the
multitude, whose evident want of reverence for
anything in the world, independently of his
hollow cheeks and the peculiar twang which
characterised his utterance, proclaimed him a
citizen of the Dis-United States, was heard to
utter these words:

"I beg to say, sir, that I have pursued the
course of your remarks pretty close, sir, and
followed them up sharp, with the hope of profiting
by them; but I am compelled to slant aside
from you on this question of Squillars, and to
inform this company that Squillars is an
unknown man." (" Hear, hear!" " I thought so!"
from many voices.) " I have here," continued
the American gentleman, " in my hand a note-
book, in which air putt down the names of all
those persons who ought to have a share in
guiding and sus-taining the councils of our
leading Euröpean cabinets, and I beg to inform
you, sir, that among those names I do not find
that of Squillars."

Hereupon there followed a sharp discussion,
in which the American put so many difficult
questions on the subject of Squillars, that it
ended in the production of Mr. Squillars
himself, who took his place upon the bench by the
side of his friend, but who, so far from benefiting
his cause by this step, was found to injure
it so materially, that the public was not long in
expressing, almost in so many words, that it
conceived Mr. Squillars to have mistaken his
vocation, and that it recommended him to
accept the Chiltern Hundreds with as little delay
as possible.

A good deal of confusion ensued about this