then the groups of little boroughs.  In the discussion of any such arrangement how easy is the picking of holes; how impossible the fabrication of a garment that shall be impervious to such picking!  Then again there was that great question of the ballot.  On that there was to be no mistake.  Mr. Mildmay again pledged himself to disappear from the Treasury bench should any motion, clause, or resolution be carried by that House in favour of the ballot.  He spoke for three hours, and then left the carcass of his bill to be fought for by the opposing armies.

No reader of these pages will desire that the speeches in the debate should be even indicated.  It soon became known that the Conservatives would not divide the House against the second reading of the bill.  They declared, however, very plainly their intention of so altering the clauses of the bill in committee,—­or at least of attempting so to do,—­as to make the bill their bill, rather than the bill of their opponents.  To this Mr. Palliser replied that as long as nothing vital was touched, the Government would only be too happy to oblige their friends opposite.  If anything vital were touched, the Government could only fall back upon their friends on that side.  And in this way men were very civil to each other.  But Mr. Turnbull, who opened the debate on the Tuesday, thundered out an assurance to gods and men that he would divide the House on the second reading of the bill itself.  He did not doubt but that there were many good men and true to go with him into the lobby, but into the lobby he would go if he had no more than a single friend to support him.  And he warned the Sovereign, and he warned the House, and he warned the people of England, that the measure of Reform now proposed by a so-called liberal Minister was a measure prepared in concert with the ancient enemies of the people.  He was very loud, very angry, and quite successful in hallooing down sundry attempts which were made to interrupt him.  “I find,” he said, “that there are many members here who do not know me yet,—­young members, probably, who are green from the waste lands and road-sides of private life.  They will know me soon, and then, may be, there will be less of this foolish noise, less of this elongation of unnecessary necks.  Our Rome must be aroused to a sense of its danger by other voices than these.”  He was called to order, but it was ruled that he had not been out of order,—­and he was very triumphant.  Mr. Monk answered him, and it was declared afterwards that Mr. Monk’s speech was one of the finest pieces of oratory that had ever been uttered in that House.  He made one remark personal to Mr. Turnbull.  “I quite agreed with the right honourable gentleman in the chair,” he said, “when he declared that the honourable member was not out of order just now.  We all of us agree with him always on such points.  The rules of our House have been laid down with the utmost latitude, so that the course of our debates may not be frivolously or too easily interrupted.  But a member may be so in order as to incur the displeasure of the House, and to merit the reproaches of his countrymen.”  This little duel gave great life to the debate; but it was said that those two great Reformers, Mr. Turnbull and Mr. Monk, could never again meet as friends.