The Fishmongers gave a grand banquet on Wednes- day, presided
over by the Prime Warden, Mr. W. S. Shoo- bridge. The chief speakers were Lord Fortescue, Mr. Goschen, and Lord Sherbrooke. Lord Fortescue, having taken advantage of the toast of the House of Lords to eulo- gise the debates of that assembly, as debates in which only those spoke who had something to say, while in the Commons, on the contrary, a great number of Members spoke only because they had to say something, Mr. Goschen re- minded Lord Fortescue that in the Lords they had one of the most powerful forms of the Closure in existence, since no Peer who spoke after the dinner-hour had, in ordinary cases, a chance of being heard. Mr. Goschen, indeed, made his speech a plea not only for restoring to the House of Commons the old authority over its own proceedings, but for the support of both parties in the re-establishment of order in Ireland ; and he asserted, amidst great cheering, that the personal 'outcry against Mr. Forster was most unjust. The Fishmongers, who have always been Whigs, evidently preferred Mr. Goschen to Lord Fortescue, who, indeed, is now a ci-devant Whig turned Conservative, not a Whig.
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