Parliament reassembled on Monday, and set to work on the
Estimates, the private Members and public bores wrangling over such congenial subjects as the sums paid for Post-Office buildings and the Ordnance Survey. On Tuesday the Government read the Scotch Local Government Bill a second time, though not without cloauring their loquacious and irrelevant supporter, Dr. MacGregor. As Dr. MacGregor rose to speak, Sir William Harcourt moved the Closure. "I consider that very shabby conduct," was, however, the only consolation allowed the extinguished speaker. On Wednesday, the House went into Committee on the Bill for amending the law in regard to the prevention of cruelty to children, and after a few unimportant alterations, the Bill was reported. The chief opposition came from Mr. Hopwood, whose notion seems to be that we have no business to interfere with the parental right to torture, and that tenderness ought not to be wasted on the victim, but reserved for the criminal. On Thursday night, the House entered upon a confused struggle over the instructions on going into Committee on the Budget and on the first clause of the Bill. The divisions were favourable to the Government, their majority rising on one occasion to 45.
