NEWS OF THE WEEK.
MR. GLAD STONE met, on Wednesday nIght, with a somewhat serious accident, which will confine him to his room for some days, though there is no kind of anxiety as to the result. Walking up his garden from the Park entrance after a visit to Marl- borough House, he slipped and fell on the back of his head, in which he out rather a deep wound; and though he was not stunned and rose without help, his medical advisers thought it necessary to keep him quiet while the wound heals ; indeed, the
traffic in Downing Street was stopped, probably to prevent or 'diminish the danger of headache after so severe a jar. The unique character of the Prime Minister's influence is never realised so much as when any circumstance arises to keep 'him away from the House. Professor Huxley has argued that a frog's brain is not an essential part of his " pur-' posive " movements, because after decapitation he still uses one of his hind legs to scratch anything corrosive from the other. And on the same principle, one might argue that Mr. Gladstone is not essential to the purposive action of the House of Commons, because in his absence " urgency " resolu- tions to get rid of obstruction, are carried without his initiative.
Nevertheless, he is missed profoundly by the 11011130, though not perhaps quite so much as the frog's brain is missed by the frog.
