that you will hear of the latest developments of the attitude of the Irish, Welsh, or Scotch Members towards the Government; of the relations between the Parnellites and Anti-Parnellites; of the intrigues constantly on foot between leaders of parties or groups, and of the cabals which are being formed by discontented and mutinous Members.

The Lobby is liveliest before the departure for dinner at seven, and again from ten o'clock till midnight. During these periods of the evening the noise, the movement and excitement of the Lobby are exhilarating, and to any one who takes a keen interest in politics and in public personages, it is the most interesting of places. It is thronged with Members, some joking and laughing, others discussing with long faces the fortunes of their cause. But there are others beside Members present. Agents of political associations, the men who conduct the campaign in the constituencies, who see that the important work of registration is carefully attended to, and that the local forces are properly organised for the fight in the pollingbooths on the day of the election,these also are admitted into the Lobby to consult, as occasion requires, with the leaders of their parties. The constant visitor to the Lobby is almost certain to meet there also most of the notabilities of the day. I have seen there, at one time or another, Cardinal Manning, "General" Booth, Mrs. Sarah Grand, the present Emperor of Germany, the present Czar of Russia, "Buffalo Bill," Madame Sarah Bernhardt, Marwood the hangman, O'Donovan Rossa, Major le Caron, General Boulanger, and many other eminent and notorious personages, besides Chinese, Turkish, Japanese, South African, Indian, and other coloured potentates and plenipotentiaries in all their barbaric splendour.

Members of the House of Lords also mix with the throng; and at night ladies in evening costumes add a fresh and piquant charm to the scene. The buzz of conversation is at times so loud, and the laughter of a group, in which Sir Wilfrid Lawson, Sir Frank Lockwood, or Mr. Labouchere (the humorists of the Lobby) is a central figure, breaks out so unrestrainedly, that the noise disturbs the legislators at work in the Chamber on the other side of the swing-doors, and brings out the Sergeant-at-Arms, who severely insists on more decorous behaviour, and reprimands his subordinates (messengers in evening dress and wearing large bronze badges upon their breasts) for their failure to preserve order.

Mixing with the throng, or taking part in the conversation of some of the various groups, and picking up every crumb of gossip (social as well as political) which they come across, are about thirty Lobbyists who represent the London and the leading provincial daily papers. The average

newspaper reader, when he peruses the London Letter in a provincial journal or the column of Political Notes in a Metropolitan newspaper, and sees the familiarity with which the names of Lord Rosebery, Lord Salisbury, Mr. Balfour, Sir William Harcourt, Mr. Chamberlain, Mr. Morley, and other statesmen are mentioned, and the authoritative air with which announcements are made, thinks, no doubt, that the writer is in constant and confidential communication with these statesmen. But, as a matter of fact, they are rarely seen in the Lobby. I only saw Mr. Gladstone in the Lobby once in ten years, and on that occasion he had to inquire his way to the Whips' room, so strange and unfamiliar was the place to him. Mr. Balfour and Sir William Harcourt occasionally cross the Lobby for the same purpose, the rooms of

both Whips, Liberal and Conservative, being just off the antechamber; but they rarely linger there to converse even with their own followers, and, as a rule, they never talk to journalists. If our leading statesmen desire to communicate with the public through the medium of the Press, if they wish to make some statement which cannot conveniently be delivered in the House of Commons, in a speech outside, or in a letter to a newspaper, the Whips, who are constantly on guard in the Lobby to prevent their followers leaving the precincts of the House unpaired, are employed to convey the official notification to the proper quarter.

But as of old time with the words that the King of Syria spoke in his bedchamber, so it is now. Everything of importance leaks out in some way or another. Even the most secret and sacred of Cabinet matters reaches sooner or later the ears of the ubiquitous and vigilant journalist, to whom nothing is sacred and nothing secret. How or where the leakage takes place it is often impossible to tell. It may be that a member of the Cabinet in an unguarded moment, forgetful of his obligation to keep the proceedings of that august circle inviolable, drops a hint to a particular friend in conversation; the friend communicates it to another friend; it is enlarged and magnified as it passes from ear to ear, till it reaches the Lobby, where it is discussed in all its bearings by politicians and journalists; and finally it is published broadcast in the different newspapers, with more or less amplification according to the ingenuity of the Lobbyist and the way in which it affects the politics of his journal. If the news is meat and drink for the Conservatives, it is exaggerated for all it is worth in Conservative organs, and proportionately discounted and discredited in Liberal

journals, the order of treatment being, of course, reversed when the intelligence makes for Liberalism.

It may be that the Lobbyists got wind of the great secret without any obligation of honour having been violated by a member of the Government. To a sagacious Lobbyist gifted with a power of intuition a word, a look, a smile is sufficient to enable him to gauge the drift of things. By shrewd guesses and negative deductions he can set at naught the reticence of Whips and Ministers, and give the readers of his newspaper fairly accurate intelligence of what is going on behind the scenes, or, what is just as well for his purpose perhaps, intelligence so agreeable to the wishes of his readers that it is accepted by them as truth. If the Lobbyist invents judiciously he need never fear official contradiction. The representative of the rival newspaper published in the same town may in print lift up his eyes in horror at the audacity of the statement, and assure his readers that it contains not a particle of truth, proceeding thereafter himself to invent just as egregious a statement in the opposite direction; but as a rule the principal parties concerned, Ministers, Whips, or leaders. of the Opposition-never trouble to send forth an authoritative denial. If our leading statesmen were to contradict every untruthful thing told of them in the newspapers they would be kept busily occupied. So long as those romances are not personally offensive they are allowed to pass unheeded by those concerned; and of course no one will ever spoil by contradiction a good story that tells to his advantage.

The Lobbyist, therefore, often goes (as Sheridan said of Dundas) to his memory for his jests and to his imagination for his facts, especially in the dull season, when there is

little or no news to be had and when he is (as he himself would say) "gravelled by lack of matter." In such a desperate pass there is nothing that a Lobbyist will not do in order to supply his newspaper with the column or so of gossip expected nightly of him. On a certain night a few sessions ago, one of the brotherhood was seated on the stairs leading from the Lobby to the Peers' Gallery in the House of Commons ruminating on the lack of political news, when Mr. Gladstone happened to come down the stairs unobserved by him. "Will you kindly allow me to pass?" said the Premier, as he then was, to the pensive journalist. He jumped up and stood aside, and Mr. Gladstone passed on with a gracious nod of recognition. The incident, trifling though it was, inspired the Lobbyist with that of which he stood most in need, a good half-column of political information. Going straightway to the telegraph-office, he sent off a message to his paper: "Meeting Mr. Gladstone this evening in the Lobby, I had a brief but profoundly interesting conversation with him," &c., &c. The half-column of conversation which followed contained nothing that was really new. It was merely a recapitulation of the views recently expressed by Mr. Gladstone on current political questions; but, served up in the vivid form of an interview, it was accepted as an important political communication from the Premier, and was accordingly widely quoted in the Press. Its authenticity was never denied by Mr. Gladstone, as it in no degree misrepresented his opinions.

A clever and enterprising Lobbyist can, by harmless if audacious manœuvres of this kind, not only get along very creditably through the dull season, but considerably enhance his reputation as the able and well

informed London Correspondent of THE BLANKSHIRE DAILY GAZETTE," as other newspapers style him when they transfer his information to their own columns. The fickleness of the public memory also enables him to indulge with impunity in many tricks and subterfuges in the invention and manufacture of his intelligence.

During the long Parliament recess last year, an article appeared in a London evening paper in which an attempt was made to forecast the composition of the next Unionist Government. It did not pretend to be anything more than purely speculative, but as it allotted portfolios with seats in the Cabinet to the Duke of Devonshire and Mr. Chamberlain, it gave rise to a good deal of discussion in the Press and in political clubs. One Lobbyist thought the idea too good to lie forgotten in the columns of an evening paper. He determined to make it do service again. Accordingly he cut out the article, pasted it in his scrap-book, and a week after the assembly of the present Session, when public interest was centred again in political affairs, he created a sensation by announcing in his London Letter, "on the most reliable authority," that in the next Unionist Cabinet Mr. Balfour was to be Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury, Lord Salisbury taking the place of Foreign Secretary, with Mr. Chamberlain and the Duke of Devonshire for Chancellor of the Exchequer and First Lord of the Admiralty respectively. Some of the Unionist papers, it is true, ridiculed the announcement; but there was no official contradiction of it, and the Lobbyist gained a fine advertisement for his journal by a daring piece of invention. The announcement was made only the other day to do duty a third time by another newspaper when there was some talk of a disso

lution. A slight change was made in the personality of the suppositious Cabinet, and it was gravely stated to have emanated from the Carlton Club. I have no doubt that several other editors and London Correspondents have " put it up for a rainy day," and that it will make its appearance once more at an opportune moment.

Lobbyists do not even draw the line at practical joking when hard put to it for news. About eight years ago two strangers were discovered seated on one of the benches below the gangway, on the Opposition side and almost under the very chair of the Sergeant-at-Arms, unconcernedly listening to the debate. They were, of course, at once removed; but the point of the joke was the extraordinary fact that they should have been able to pass the vigilant doorkeepers. Their own statement was that they had been told to "go straight on," an injunction which they had successfully followed to the letter.

The

fact was that, being on a visit to London from the north, they had been brought into the Lobby by their representative, and told to wait there until he got orders to admit them to the House. They were immediately approached by two waggish Lobbyists, who directed them to " go straight on into the Chamber," and this they guilelessly did, to the great amazement of the jokers, who, of course, imagined that they would have been stopped by the doorkeepers.

Even Mr. Balfour has in his day been the victim of the irrepressible Lobbyist During his tenure of the Irish Secretaryship he received one morning in March (being St. Patrick's Day), at the House of Commons, an oaken octagonal-shaped box about ten inches in length. On the box being opened a bunch of shamrock, with a card bearing the inscription From a sincere admirer, was found inside, and

underneath a layer of some white compound through which could plainly be discerned a steel spring. Mr. Balfour is not a timid man; but the contents of the box were sufficient to excite uncomfortable thoughts of dynamite and infernal machines in the mind of the bravest. The Chief Secretary, therefore, deemed it well, before further explorations, to send for an official of the Houses of Parliament who is a bit of an analytical chemist; and on his arrival they both set to work to unravel the mystery in Mr. Balfour's room, much to the terror of the private secretaries who were momentarily expecting a terrible explosion. For a moment the chemist was puzzled; but, putting a particle of the compound upon his tongue, he discovered that it was simply sugar impregnated with lemon. On turning the box upside down, out rolled an antiquated corkscrew, a spiral spring, and a well-worn nutmeg-grater, and on the bottom was a paper bearing these words: "Buy the whiskey yourself; you can then concoct the famous lemonade of Ballyhooly."

The story of another practical joke, in connection with a celebrated byeelection a few years ago, is still current in the Lobby. It was one of those contests of which it is impossible to foretell the result, each side being pretty confident of victory, and each agreeing that the majority in either case would be very small. The issue was therefore awaited with great interest. One of the Lobbyists arranged with a journalist who was reporting the election for a news-agency, to send to the House of Commons, to the Whip of the beaten candidate's party, a telegram announcing the victory of that candidate so soon as the counting of the votes had reached a stage to make it easy to determine the winner. Accordingly, about eleven o'clock at night, when the result of the election

was expected and the Lobby was crowded with excited groups of politicians of both parties, Mr. Majoribanks (the present Lord Tweedmouth), who was the Chief Whip of the Liberal Party, received a telegram, and on reading it cried exultantly, "We have won, we have won!" He then rushed into the House, followed by cheering Liberals, and announced the glad tidings to Mr. Gladstone, and other leaders of his party. Up jumped the Irish Members with characteristic enthusiasm, some of them even climbed on to the benches, and, waving hats and handkerchiefs over their heads, roared themselves hoarse in the extravagance of their delight. By a curious coincidence it happened that Mr. Balfour, then Chief Secretary for Ireland, was addressing the House at the moment; and, as the result of the election was regarded as a repudiation of his Irish policy, the Irish Members shouted with all the greater joy. Mr. Balfour was unable to proceed with his speech for a few minutes; it was manifest that the news had depressed him, and he stood silently with his elbow on the table until the storm had spent its force. Suddenly another wild outburst of applause was heard in the Lobby. The Irishmen again renewed their cheers, but the spectacle of Sir E. Ashmead-Bartlett, a telegram in his hand and the light of victory blazing in his eyes, rushing up the floor towards the Treasury Bench, told them that some strange and startling development had taken place in the situation, and with rather shamefaced looks they resumed their

ing laughter. Mr. Balfour resumed his speech in mighty spirits; but what was more to the Lobbyists' purpose, they had, thanks to this ingenious little joke, no lack of news that night.

Playfulness of this kind is not, to say the least, encouraged in the Lobby. The present Sergeant-at-Arms is a strict disciplinarian, so strict indeed that he tolerates skittishness only in Members; and though in private circles a very genial gentleman, sets a stern example to all officials and frequenters of the House and Lobby by never smiling in the House even when the rafters are ringing with laughter over some amusing joke or ludicrous incident. Consequently the Lobbyists are rather afraid of Mr. H. D. Erskine. One of the band has been suspended (that is, he has had his name removed from the list of Lobbyists) for neglecting to take off his hat to the Mace, as the Speaker, attended by the Sergeant-at-Arms carrying that symbol of the power and authority of the House of Commons, passed through the Lobby on his way to the Lords. It is fair to say that this is the only case of suspension for indecorous conduct on record for many years. But a far more common failing of the Lobbyists is that, in writing about the House and its Members, they go, as I have said before, to their imaginations for their facts; and yet only one of the body has come to disaster through his powers of invention. There was published in the Sunday papers of December 7th, 1890, the day following the Saturday on which, after a week's debate, Mr. Parnell was deposed from the leadership of the Irish Party in Committee Room Fifteen, a most sensational account of the termination of the historic proceedings. It was reported by one of the news-agencies that, as the AntiParnellites passed through an ill