At the Ministerial Whitebait Dinner on Wednesday, which was held
as usual at Greenwich, some of the Liberals of Green- wich seized the occasion to present Mr. Gladstone with a carved- oak chair, as a souvenir of his former constituency. The ad- dress with which it was accompanied expressed the feeling of pro- found admination with which Mr. Gladstone's conduct of the Land Bill, in the most unmanageable House of our day, had been -observed, and a deep belief in the wisdom and righteousness of his general policy. Mr. Gladstone, in speaking his thanks, ad- verted especially to the wise and powerful co-operation he had received from his colleagues, and once more announced with renewed emphasis the necessity of reorganising the procedure of the House of Commons, and the resolve of the Government to -enter with determination on the task. Accepting the chair as a symbol of rest, he expressed the hope that "till he delivered over into other and worthier hands" the charge that rested upon him, he should do nothing to forfeit the confidence reposed in him,—a date which his audience treated as equivalent to that of the Greek Kalends.
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