On the question of :excluding women and minors from the
operation of the Bill, the Irish Members became still more ferocious. Mr. Dawson said that he spoke as a husband, and that if any one came to lay his hand upon his wife, ho should pass first over his own dead body ; and Mr. Macdonald de- nominated the Bill "infamous." Mr. Metge, denouncing the " cowardly jeers" of the Ministerial Benches, challenged. the Government to shoot down the Irish Members "like dogs, which he appeared to assume the Bill would onablethem to do ; whereupon Dr. Mayfair blandly remarked that be was not speaking to the question before the House. Mr. Gladstone pointed out that the effect of exempting women from the operation of the Bill would be to render it far more likely that if anything wroug was to be done, women would be put forward as the tools to do it, and that, in point of fact, in countries where society was disorganised, there were no com- moner instruments of political intrigue than women. But none the less, Mr. A. M. Sullivan suggested, later iu the debate, that the refusal to forbid arrests during the night-time in the homes of the people, was because the Government wished to have the power of insulting the virtue of the women of Ireland. All this, of course, the Irish Members .did not in the least believe. But as handfuls of mud to fling at the Government, they wore effeetive.and inexpensive missiles,
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