ously, at the time of the first denunciations published by the "Voix
du Peuple," he had asked leave to interpellate the Government respecting
that deplorable affair of the African Railways; and he remarked, truly
enough, that if the Chamber had not yielded to certain considerations
which he did not wish to discuss, and had not adjourned his proposed
inquiries, full light would long since have been thrown on the whole
affair, in such wise that there would have been no revival, no increase
of the scandal, and no possible pretext for that abominable campaign of
denunciation which tortured and disgusted the country. However, it had at
last been understood that silence could be maintained no longer. It was
necessary that the two ministers who were so loudly accused of having
abused their trusts, should prove their innocence, throw full light upon
all they had done; apart from which the Chamber itself could not possibly
remain beneath the charge of wholesale venality.

Then he recounted the whole history of the affair, beginning with the
grant of a concession for the African Lines to Baron Duvillard; and next
passing to the proposals for the issue of lottery stock, which proposals,
it was now said, had only been sanctioned by the Chamber after the most
shameful bargaining and buying of votes. At this point Mege became
extremely violent. Speaking of that mysterious individual Hunter, Baron
Duvillard's recruiter and go-between, he declared that the police had
allowed him to flee from France, much preferring to spend its time in
shadowing Socialist deputies. Then, hammering the tribune with his fist,
he summoned Barroux to give a categorical denial to the charges brought
against him, and to make it absolutely clear that he had never received a
single copper of the two hundred thousand francs specified in Hunter's
list. Forthwith certain members shouted to Mege that he ought to read the
whole list; but when he wished to do so others vociferated that it was
abominable, that such a mendacious and slanderous document ought not to
be accorded a place in the proceedings of the French legislature. Mege
went on still in frantic fashion, figuratively casting Sagnier into the
gutter, and protesting that there was nothing in common between himself
and such a base insulter. But at the same time he demanded that justice
and punishment should be meted out equally to one and all, and that if
indeed there were any bribe-takers among his colleague