Volume 25 — THAT VERY SMALL (POLITICAL) PARTY.
Reading edition
Lord John Russell, in his recent speech at Greenock, alluded to the "absence of party" as a thing scarcely to be hoped, but greatly to be desired. The word "party" is so vague in its ordinary sense, that we should be glad to know the "party" to which Lord John alludes. He may either mean "that party" over the way, on the other side of the House, or that "other party," or that "Irish party," or that "troublesome little party" that is always asking inconvenient questions, or some "party" that some other "party" is always egging on to annoy the Government. The only "party" to which we are quite sure his Lordship did not refer is the "Protectionist party," for it would have been absurd to express a wish for the absence of what has already ceased to be, and it would be even worse than crushing a butterfly on a wheel, to call for the annihilation of a nonentity.
Arms for Ireland.
The Queen has suggested to the Irish the propriety of mending their own clothes. Hitherto, when we have sent steel to Ireland, it has been in the shape of swords and bayonets. Queen Victoria, however, a right royal housewife, presents sister Hibernia with a packet of needles.
TRUE FEELING.
"My dearest Brother, confide in me. You are ill?"
"Ill, Jemima! Broken-hearted—dying! For six months I've sought her—all my money gone in advertisements and inquiries; but she is lost to me for ever!"
"She?"
"Yes! The Woman who Starched that Collar!"