en he would cut his beard
and hair again, wear a short coat, a sort of pilot jacket, and
eventually a long black coat. So that if a drawing was not published at
once it would have been out of date.

Some artists have been flattering enough to take my sketches as
references for Parliamentarians, but others depended on photographs, and
for years I have seen Mr. Parnell represented with the neatly-trimmed
moustache and closely-cut side whiskers. _A propos_ of this, I may
mention here how mistakes often become perpetuated. John Bright, for
instance, was generally represented in political sketches with an
eye-glass. This was a slip made by an artist in _Punch_ many years ago.
But ever after John Bright was represented with an eye-glass--which he
never wore, except on one occasion just to see how he liked it.

The effect upon the House when Mr. Parnell rose was always dramatic. He
sat there during a debate, seldom, if ever, taking a note, with his hat
well over his eyes and his arms crossed, in strong contrast to the
restlessness of those around him. When he rose, it seemed an effort to
lift his voice, and he spoke in a hesitating, ineffective manner.
Neither was there much in what he said, but he was _Parnell_, and the
fact that he said little and said it quietly, that what he said was not
prepared in consultation with his Whips or with his Party, that in fact
he was playing a game in which his closest friends were not consulted,
made his rising interesting from the reporters' gallery to the
doorkeepers in the Lobby the other side.

Mr. Parnell seemed to have been very little affected by his continued
reverses; and perhaps the only visible effect of his loss of power was
that the "uncrowned king" of Ireland changed his top-hat to a plebeian
bowler, but he did not change his coat. He was always careless about his
dress, and his tall, handsome figure looked somewhat ridiculous when he
wore a bowler, black frock coat, and his hair as usual unkempt.

The fall of Parnell was one of the most sensational and certainly the
most dramatic incident in the history of Parliament.

Mr. Parnell was politically ruined and the Irish Party smashed beyond
recovery in the famous Committee Room No. 15, after the disclosures in
the Divorce Court in which Mr. Parnell figured as co-respondent. Mr.
Parnell had found the Irish Party without a leader, without a programme,
without a future. He had by his individual force made it a power which
had