Sir Stafford Northcote, in returning thanks for the House of
Commons, complained of Lord Hartington's assertion that, pending an appeal to the country, all interest had vanished from the debates of that assembly ; and compared it to the re- mark of the Yankee who bad boasted that the Americans had uniformly beaten the English in all their engagements, and who, when reminded of a battle in which undoubtedly the former were utterly defeated, remarked, 4 Well, we Americans seemed to take no interest in that battle." Sir Stafford declared that the six millions for which credit was granted in 1878 were made to do duty, like the six soldiers who march round and round, first across the stage and then behind the scenes of a theatre, to represent . an army, and that in that way the six millions were being magnified into twenty millions ; and indeed, Sir Stafford Northcote all but congratulated the City both on the state of the House of Commons, and on that of the finances after which it is the special duty of the House of Commons to look. We cordially agree with him that the one is quite as much a subject for congratulation as the other,—though it would require an extension of the word. "congratulation," so as to cover condolence, to fit it to the mood in which either the one or the other can be regarded by a reasonable mind.
