Late on Wednesday night, or early on Thursday morning, Sir
Richard Webster, the English Attorney-General, pro- voked a most legitimate explosion of indignation from Mr. Dalziel and his friends, by suggesting in a whisper loud enough to be heard on the opposite side of the House during the Chancellor of the Exchequer's speech, that the Lowland Members who had opposed the vote for extending the Highland railways were " probably paid." He immediately withdrew and subsequently apologised for this very improper sugges. tion ; but he could not thereby allay the wrath which it excited, and it was indeed regrettable that the Attorney-General should add to the difficulties of dealing with Mr. Healy's obstructive tactics, the odium created by this display of almost insensate prejudice on the part of one of the most important members of the Administration. That a great lawyer who is past middle- age, and who has had more experience in the misleading effects of political passion than almost any other twenty Members of the House put together, should have made such a blunder as this, ought to make us very chary in condemning the passionate blunders of members of the Irish party who have been accustomed to regard their hands as against every man, and every man's hand as against them.
