330 "MY KINGDOM FOR A HORSE ! " 



wheeling a fire-escape, with the underline " O Romeo, 

 Romeo ! " ; but he did not last long in politics after the 

 affair, and the public, as its wont is, soon began to think 

 of other men of the more immediate moment. 



Our Christmas Number for 1890 was called The Popular 

 Poll, purporting to be a record of an election under some 

 dreadful new Reform Act. A supposed extract from The 

 Star of the period had the following headlines : 



RIOTOUS SCENES AT NEWMARKET 

 BURNING OF THE JOCKEY CLUB ROOMS 



ESCAPE OF THE STEWARDS 

 MR JAMES LOWTHER INTERVIEWED 

 PROSPECTS OF THE ELECTION 



An extract presumed to be from The Times said : 



The candidature of Mr Abington Baird has been received with 

 many indications of public favour. Mr Baird 's downright full- 

 flavoured methods of speech are not without their charm among 

 sporting electors ; and his friends, Mr Charles Mitchell, Mr W. 

 Goode, Mr J. Carney and others have been singularly successful 

 in preventing any attempts to disturb the meetings which he has 

 held. 



One of Phil May's page drawings in that number re- 

 presents the Bar of the New House of Commons, with 

 Arthur Roberts as the Speaker. Messrs Gladstone and 

 Parnell are pledging one another, and Romano, with a 

 smart barmaid, is serving drinks. Tasker and the Shifter 

 are present, also John Corlett, " Chippy " Bull, Jack 

 Percival and other strangely mixed celebrities. Like all 

 Phil May's work; that in this Christmas Number was 

 strikingly good, notably a portrait of Frank Slavin as 

 sergeant-at-arms ; but in my opinion the paper had 

 received its death-blow in the Hansard Union struggle. 

 Radclyffe thought there was a chance to carry on, and I 

 decided to leave it to him. I stipulated only to take the 

 blocks and copyright of The Parson and the Painter, and 

 so cleared out, 7th February 1891 being the last date on 

 which my name appears in the paper as having " signed 

 for the writers." 



