252 Parliamentary Movements of the Month. [MARCH, 



Meanwhile the Bill passes forward at a rate which indicates such an 

 extreme aversion to hurry, that if ministers were accused of endeavour- 

 ing to create the " re-action" with which they are threatened, they could 

 scarcely have a right to complain. The Chairman nightly reports pro- 

 gress with as much solemnity as if any had been made. And how is 

 all this to be helped, ask the moderators, when the enemy is every 

 instant in attack ? The question is answered in three words " Create 

 fifty Peers now, and keep them at hand ready for use." The very 

 appearance of the gazette will cause them to be wanted in a month ! 

 The Opposition will, of course, fight as long as they have anything to 

 gain, and no longer. The Peers must be made at last ; and yet it is a 

 peer himself who is hesitating upon this simple question whether the 

 peerage shall be suddenly increased, or run the chance of being as sud- 

 denly abolished ! 



On other subjects they have shewn more alacrity in the dismissal of 

 Sir Henry Parnell, and in preparing legislative antidotes to Cholera. 

 We have no fault to find with the conduct of the ministry with respect 

 to their coadjutor, except that the dismissal-system should have been 

 put in force before, and not have commenced with one of the ablest 

 men amongst them ; while on a subject of so very questionable a charac- 

 ter as cholera, they were sure to meet with perplexities. If they had 

 taken precautionary measures three months ago, a very large party 

 would have laughed at them ; and as they did not, they are accused of 

 waiting until the pestilence had fixed its furious talons on unhappy 

 Lambeth, and threatened to land at Westminster- stairs at the sacred 

 gate of Parliament itself. In the House, indeed, the feeling respecting 

 the dreaded visitor, assumed an appearance for we do not imagine 

 that it was so in reality much more personal than patriotic. Mr. Hunt, 

 among others, made an observation in the proper parliamentary style ; 

 to the effect that " while they were endeavouring to prevent contagion 

 in others, it became them to take care of themselves." This is an axiom 

 that has always been acted upon by both Houses of Parliament, and 

 does not appear more liable to neglect because Mr. Hunt has found his 

 way into one of them. The Board of Health, and most of the boards 

 appointed to arrest the march of cholera, are, if we are to trust report, 

 keeping the axiom very commendably in view. But the " cholera" is 

 not worth another word. The non-contagion principle has taken root, 

 and will guard us from the effects of a panic that would be much more 

 fatal than the disease. The public understand the matter better than 

 their physicians ; and will, we are sure, prefer those advisers who say 

 least about it. 



The subject of Military Flogging, that most detestable and demo- 

 ralizing of all species of punishment, has been brought under discus- 

 sion, on a motion by Mr. Hunt, simply for a return of the number of 

 persons flogged, and the extent of punishment inflicted, in the year 

 1831 and this, which was pledging the House to nothing, was refused 

 by a large majority ; Lord Althorp, who some time ago supported a 

 specific motion of Sir John Hobhouse's on the subject, voting against 

 the return. His lordship said, that many of the commanding officers of 

 the army wished for some other mode of punishment, and were willing 

 to give up flogging, when they could do so with safety. We suspect 

 that they would rather give up their commissions, than this darling 

 relic of military barbarism. However, we have confidence in Sir John 



