The Irish Sunday Closing Bill has passed both Houses at
last, after meeting with more protracted, and in some respects, less intelligible opposition than any Bill which we can remember that has been introduced into the House of Commons. Not that we have any great admiration for the Bill, though we think it one of those on which the voice of Ireland had some right to be heard. But what is there in this perhaps rather unwise, but certainly, on the whole, popular measure in Ireland, to bring upon it such stilted rhetorical denunciation as this of Mr. Murphy's, de- livered on Saturday last, on the occasion of the third reading in the Commons ? "He wished for himself to enter a final protest against the passing of a measure begotten in a combination of self-interest, misinformation, and misdirected zeal, brought forth in an atmosphere of self-complacency, nurtured and fed upon an artificial pabulum of so-called public opinion, created, manu- factured, and manipulated by the untiring zeal and exertions of certain well-paid stipendiary, peripatetic apostles of an organ- ised association." We never before heard of infanta brought forth "in an atmosphere of self-complacency," and hardly kw* what it means. Is the self-complacency the self-complacency of the mother, or of the baby? And if "the pabulum of so-called public opinion" is so very artificial, what is the usual food for the infants of Irish legislation? Then how does the child, after being brought forth and fed, come subsequently to be "created, manufactured, and manipulated," even by "apostles of an organised association ?" We never read a more astonishing record of a "child-life," as it is the modern custom to call the sentimental experience of our latter-day bantlings.
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