one in which Dr. MACNAMARA, when
somebody asked a question about the Portsmouth "butchery
department," jerked out "War Office!" was calculated to give rise to
misapprehension.

The Ministry of Health Bill found Mr. DEVLIN in a dilemma. He makes it
a rule never to support anything that emanates either from the House
of Lords or from the Government. But on this occasion his two _betes
noirs_ were in opposition, for the Lords had decided that the
new Minister should have but one Parliamentary Secretary, and the
Government was determined to give him two. Whichever way he voted the
Nationalist Leader was bound to do violence to his principles. And
so, with that quick-wittedness for which his countrymen are justly
renowned, he walked out without voting at all.

[Illustration: A DIPLOMATIC EGG-DANCE.

SIR AUCKLAND GEDDES.]

_Tuesday, May 27th._--It is odd that the House of Lords, which has
done so much for the emancipation of women still refuses to allow
peeresses in their own right to take part in its debates. They would
have been very useful this afternoon, when two Bills affecting
their sex were under discussion. An extraordinary amount of heat was
developed by the Nurses Registration Bill, introduced by Lord GOSCHEN,
and I am sure some of the charming ladies in the Strangers' Gallery
must have been longing to produce their clinical thermometers and
descend to the floor to take the temperatures of the disputants.

[Illustration: "I WON'T SUPPORT ANYTHING."

MR. DEVLIN.]

So far as one could gather, the Bill is the outcome of a quarrel
between the College of Nurses and the rest of the profession. Who
shall decide when nurses disagree?

In Committee on the Bill for enabling women to become Justices of the
Peace Lord STRACHIE moved to restrict the privilege to those who
have "attained the age of thirty years." The LORD CHANCELLOR strongly
resisted the limitation on the ground that the Government are pledged
to establish "equality between the sexes." He was supported by Lord
BEAUCHAMP, who, however, thought it unlikely that any ladies under
that age would in fact be appointed. I am not so sure. Who knows but
that some day the Woolsack may be tenanted by a really susceptible
Chancellor?

There are limits to the credulity of the House of Commons. Mr.
BOTTOMLEY'S assertion that many clergymen did not know whether they
might marry a woman to her deceased husband's brother, and had written
to him for an authoritative op