f description of his methods of obstruction will bring this
home. First, it should be said that he is entirely inarticulate and,
beyond rough common sense, destitute of ideas. He has nothing to say,
and he cannot say it. There are men in the House of Commons who have
plenty of thoughts, and who have plenty of words besides, and could
branch out on any subject whatever into a dissertation which would
command the interest even of political foes. But Jimmy is not of this
class. He is capable, on the contrary, of bringing down the loftiest
subject that ever moved human breasts to something stumbling,
commonplace and prosaic. When he gets up, then, his speech consists
rather of a series of gulps than of articulate or intelligible
statements. But then mark the singular courage and audacity of the whole
proceeding. There are traditions still in the House of Commons of the
marvellously stimulating effect upon followers of leaders, who were
proverbial for their oratorical impotence. Everybody remembers the
scornful description of Castlereagh which Byron gave to the world; and
yet it has been said in some memoirs that the moment Castlereagh stood
up and adjusted his waistcoat, there was a thrill in the House of
Commons, and his followers bellowed their exultation and delight. In a
more recent day, Lord Althorpe was able to bear down the hostility of
some of the most powerful orators of his time by a bluff manliness which
no rhetoric could withstand. And so also with Jimmy--his sheer audacity
carries him along the slow, dull, inept, muddy tide of his inarticulate
speech.

[Sidenote: An irrepressible nuisance.]

And curiously enough, it is impossible to put him down. On March 6th he
was commenting on some item which he supposed was in a Post-office
Estimate. It was pointed out to him that the item to which he alluded
was not in that particular vote at all, but in quite another vote, which
came later on. Jimmy, nevertheless, went on to discuss the item as if
nothing had been said. Then the long-suffering Chairman had to be called
in, and he ruled--as every human being would have been bound to
rule--that Jimmy was out of order. Was Jimmy put down? Not the least in
the world. He made an apology, and, as the apology was ample and his
deliverance is slow, the apology enabled him to consume some more
minutes of precious Government time. And then, having failed to find
fault with the estimate for what it did not contain, he proceeded to