Mr. Disraeli, as usual, moved on Tuesday the adjournment of
the House over the Derby Day, and Sir W. Lawson, as usual, took a division against the motion. He made a most amusing speech, giving an account of Mr. Disraeli sitting, solemn and im- passive, reading the Slandard during a railway accident, which befell him last year while visiting the St. Leger. He wanted to know, if cockfighting became the popular sport, whether
the House would adjourn for that ; quoted the Daily Tele- graph to prove that the Derby was the "grandest assem- blage of bla.ckgnardism on the face of the earth," as well as "one of the prettiest sights in the world," and told honourable Members to make themselves rsepectable before they attempted to elevate the Derby by their attendance. The House took its scolding most good-humouredly, though it laughed heartily when Mr. Bromley Davenport hinted that he had seen Sir Wilfrid a4.--v. the Derby "with a doll in his hat ;" but the minority vote would have been small, had not Mr. Bright risen to ask whether the House was right in specially honouring an event which was the cause of so "enormous an amount of evil and vice." Gambling worked mischief ; the Derby was a great occasion of gambling ; and the House gave special countenance to the Derby. This argument, which is perfectly sound, though it takes a mere habit a little too much as grand serieux, brought up the minority from 81 last year, and 69 in 1874, to 118. Nobody mentioned the argument that if the House did not formally adjourn, the Home-rulers might remain alone, and solemnlyresolve that Ireland:was an independent continent.
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