resort to all the means of delay in his power, and moved that the chairman should leave the chair.  The motion was negatived by forty votes to two.  Then the first clause was read.  Shaw divided the House again on that clause.  He was beaten by the same majority.  He moved again that the chairman should leave the chair.  He was beaten again.  He divided on the second clause.  He was beaten again.  He then said that he was sensible that he was doing very wrong; that his conduct was unhandsome and vexatious; that he heartily begged our pardons; but that he had said that he would delay the bill as far as the forms of the House would permit; and that he must keep his word.  Now came a discussion by which Nancy, if she had been in the ventilator, [A circular ventilator, in the roof of the House of Commons, was the only Ladies’ Gallery that existed in the year 1832.] might have been greatly edified, touching the nature of vows; whether a man’s promise given to himself,—­a promise from which nobody could reap any advantage, and which everybody wished him to violate,—­constituted an obligation.  Jephtha’s daughter was a case in point, and was cited by somebody sitting near me.  Peregrine Courtenay on one side of the House, and Lord Palmerston on the other, attempted to enlighten the poor Orangeman on the question of casuistry.  They might as well have preached to any madman out of St. Luke’s.  “I feel,” said the silly creature, “that I am doing wrong, and acting very unjustifiably.  If gentlemen will forgive me, I will never do so again.  But I must keep my word.”  We roared with laughter every time he repeated his apologies.  The orders of the House do not enable any person absolutely to stop the progress of a bill in Committee, but they enable him to delay it grievously.  We divided seventeen times, and between every division this vexatious Irishman made us a speech of apologies and self-condemnation.  Of the two who had supported him at the beginning of his freak one soon sneaked away.  The other, Sibthorpe, stayed to the last, not expressing remorse like Shaw, but glorying in the unaccommodating temper he showed and in the delay which he produced.  At last the bill went through.  Then Shaw rose; congratulated himself that his vow was accomplished; said that the only atonement he could make for conduct so unjustifiable was to vow that he would never make such a vow again; promised to let the bill go through its future stages without any more divisions; and contented himself with suggesting one or two alterations in the details.  “I hint at these amendments,” he said.  “If the Secretary for Ireland approves of them, I hope he will not refrain from introducing them because they are brought forward by me.  I am sensible that I have forfeited all claim to the favour of the House.  I will not divide on any future stage of the bill.”  We were all heartily pleased with these events; for the truth was that the seventeen divisions occupied less time than a real hard debate would have done, and were