21 MAY 1870, Page 3

A lively debate took place yesterday week on Mr. Cowper-

Temple's motion censuring Mr. Ayrton for his cavalier dismissal of the Architect to the House of Commons, Mr. E. Barry. Mr. Ayrton said he had not dismissed Mr. Barry at all, and that, so far as he had dismissed him, he had dismissed him on good grounds, because it was necessary to reorganize the Board of Works and put all its financial operations under. a single head,—a post for which Captain Galton .had been chosen. Mr. Beresford Hope called Mr. Ayrton " assumptious," a coinage. at$which Mr. Osborne expressed his dismay, and launched out into an. amnsingopeech in defence of " the noble savage," LS he denominated Mr. Ayrton, and against the Society of Architects, whose customs of thirty years' standing Mr. Beresford Hope had spoken of as existing from "time immemorial," to Mr. Osborne's great satisfaction and ironical delight. Mr. Osborne declared himself for the cause of the British taxpayer and against that of the "Family Architect" to the House of Com- mons,—the weak point of his speech being that he did not connect Mr. Barry with the profligate expenditure of which he complained. The upshot of the debate was that Mr. Ayrton had been needlessly rude, without the slightest occasion, to Mr. Barry, but that what he had done was substantially right. The motion was negatived by a majority of 43,-152 to 109.