t that object, while at the same time adding to the stock
of one's ideas--humorous or sentimental, it does not matter which--that
volume is to be thanked and cherished. The difficulty of putting down
one's book and extinguishing the light before the exposition of sleep
comes upon one, must be left to be dealt with by the individual man. I
have heard of a popular vocalist who was wont, when he had read
sufficiently, to extinguish the candle by plumping down upon it whatever
book he happened to have in his hand. But this is a rough and ready mode
which cannot be generally recommended--at any rate, not in those cases
where the book is one's own! Some other means must be discovered. And
let them be efficacious, for when any element of danger or unhealthiness
is allowed to attend the use of bedside books, the sooner that use is
discontinued the better.

THEIR MUCH SPEAKING.

The 'dreary drip of dilatory declamation' to which Lord Salisbury, in
one of his happiest phrases, once drew attention, shows no sign of
exhaustion, or even of diminution; and the Conservative chief has
followed up his admirable epigram by picturing the time when, all
rational discussion and all beneficial legislation being out of the
question, the House of Commons may become a mere mechanical puppet-show,
and may present the spectacle of 'a steam Irish Party, an electric
Ministry, and a clockwork Speaker.' It is certain that there never was
so much talk in the Lower House as at the present moment; but it is also
certain that the complaint of 'much speaking' has before now been
frequently preferred against both Chambers. Politicians have always been
a wordy race, and many a sharp shaft has been aimed at their besetting
weakness. A last-century satirist once wrote:

'"Do this," cries one side of St. Stephen's great hall;
"Do just the reverse," the minority bawl....
And what is the end of this mighty tongue-war?
--Nothing's done for the State till the State is done for!'

And, unfortunately, the quality of the talk has often been as poor as
the quantity was considerable. It was, we believe, a pre-Victorian pen
which perpetrated this couplet on the House of Commons:

'To wonder now at Balaam's ass were weak:
Is there a night that asses do not speak?'

Fun has constantly been made of the typical drawbacks of political
oratory--of the dull men, of the heavy, of the shallow, of the
unintelligible, and what not. We have been told ho