Mr. Disraeli announced on Friday week that Parliament might hope
to adjourn on the 8th August. Her Majesty's Government had resolved to give up the Land Bills, the Judicature Bills, and in fact all Bills of the least use, except the Public Worship Regulation Bill, which, in theory at least, is still a private measure. As to the Endowed Schools Bill, the Premier believed the House to be under an entire misconception as to the character of the Bill, but he admitted that he could not, after hours of attention, pretend to understand it himself. He attributed this
obscurity to the draughtsmen employed by the House, and:their new method of drawing amending Acts, and he therefore pro- posed, as the House had sanctioned the appointment of a new Commission, to postpone the clauses still in dispute until the coming Session. The House took this explanation, and especi- ally the promise with which it concluded, at an excellent joke, which was, perhaps, the best method of treating a statement in which words were so obviously used only to conceal thought. If they were sincere, they would amount just to this,—that the Premier had staked his Administration on a Bill, the object and effects of which he knew all the time that he did not comprehend. He not only leaped in the dark, but did not know why he leaped.
