There have been three minor proceedings in the House of
Com- mons which possess some attraction.
Mr. Duncombe has been allowed quietly to bring in a bill to efface from the Parliamentary oath taken by Members of the House of Commons the words "on the true faith of a Christian," and thus relieve the Jewish Members from a badge of inferiority, and relieve the House from the trouble of making a sessional order there anent. No doubt Mr. Duncombe will meet with op- position, but it is folly to talk of Lord Luean's bill as a " settle- ment " of the question. It was an expedient devised to get the two Houses out of a difficulty. It has answered its purpose, and Mr. Dtincembe's measure may fairly render it a dead letter.
,Mr. Dillwyn's Endowed Schools Bill has been thrown out on the second reading. The question is one of difficulty and is not solved by Lord Cranworth's bill. But Mr. Dillwyn's measure would have made matters worse than they were before. There is no reason why a bill should not remove the existing grievances of the Dissenters, allow them a legal status as trustees, and permit their children to enjoy the benefits of these schools, without, at the same time, clutching at the property of the Church of Eng- land.
The second reading of the Bleaching Works Bill by so large a majority is a good augury of its passage this session ; and few bills have a better claim on the attention of the House than one which proposes to relieve women and children from sufferings of the most painful kind.
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