General Election, and Mr. Smollet, to the uproarious delight of gentlemen near him, savagely kicked him.
"Mobbing him."
It was in the second year of this same Parliament, less than twenty years ago, that Mr. Gladstone, issuing from a division lobby, was suddenly pounced upon by some fifty or sixty Conservative members, and howled at for the space of several moments. It is, happily, possible for Mr. Gladstone to forget, or at least to forgive, personal attacks made upon him through his long career. In this very month of the new Session he may be nightly seen working in cordial fashion with ancient adversaries from Ireland, describing as "my honourable friends" gentlemen who, ten years ago and for some time subsequently, heaped on his head the coarsest vituperation permitted by practised manipulation of Parliamentary forms. But this scene in the division lobby on the 12th of April, 1875, is burned into his recollection. I have heard him, within the last few months, refer to it in those tones of profound indignation and with that flashing fire in his eyes only seen when he is deeply moved. He mentioned, what I think was not known, that Lord Hartington happened to be walking with him at the time. But there was no mistake for whom the angry cries were meant. Mr. Gladstone spoke with the profounder indignation because, as he said, he had on this occasion gone out to vote on behalf of a man whose character he detested, because he saw in the action taken against him an attack upon one of the privileges of Parliament.
That scene was an outburst of political animosity; and the movements of political animosity, like the dicta of taste, are not to be disputed. But on the question of good manners, the only one here under consideration, it may be affirmed that the present House of Commons would be safe from lapse into such an exhibition. To this better state of things the operation of the New Rules has conspicuously contributed, and though, as we know, they have not operated to the absolute extinction of Parliamentary scenes, they have appreciably limited opportunity and incentive.
