Hours have been wasted this week over the Parks' Bill,
with no further result than to show Mr. Vernon Harcourt posing in the attitude of Tribune of the Roughs. A valuable amendment intro- duced by Mr. Rylands on Thursday, vesting the appointment of Parkkeepers in a responsible official instead of a Ranger, was lost, and Mr. Harcourt's motion to place the Parks under the police was defeated by a majority of 183, after a very unusual scene. Good Mr. Bruce, in order to soothe everybody, promised that any regulations passed by the Ranger should be laid on the table of the House, a proposal which Mr. Hardy denounced as an effort to throw responsibility off the Government. Mr. Gladstone, who can stand anything better than misrepresentatiod, thereupon attacked Mr. Hardy for importing the "acid and venomous spirit of party" into all debates, and made a bitter allusion to Tory mismanagement during the Hyde Park riots. Mr. Disraeli rose to defend his colleagues, and declared that during that business Mr. Gladstone had sat " night after night in sullen silence," and never opened his mouth except to address a mob from a balcony, a statement which the Premier in return charac- terized as without "a shred, shadow, or syllable of truth." "I mean," said the Premier, catching himself up, "it has no founda- tion in fact." It was quite a scene, and everybody was delighted except those who, like ourselves, had imagined that Mr. Gladstone had at last learnt the great Parliamentary art of smiling away calumny. He must., it would seem, kick it away still, and of course, like everybody else who kicks at nothing, he hurts himself.
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