Untitled

Evening Star, Issue 18332, 20 July 1923, Page 2

It is one of tho undignified facts of our history, writes tho ‘Manchester Guardian,’ that tho Habeas Corpus Art, that palladium of our liberties recently invoked in the case of the Irish deportees, came upon the Stat- i ute Book by way of a jest. Nob even Macaulay mentioned it (though ho must havo read It in a footnote of Bishop Burnet), I hut his brilliant grand-nephew, Mr G. M. | Trovolyan, has too unerring an eye for tho picturesque to let it slip. At a critical moment tho Bill only passed tho House of Lords oeoauso tho tellers, ns a jest, hact counted a certain fat lord who voted for tho Bill as ten votes, and in their mirth over this excellent witticism had failed to rectify their figures until it was too late. A fitting ! origin for the ono good measure’ of the ( Merry Monarch's reign! "It was,” saysi Trevelyan, “ the best joko ever made in England. The fat lord’s vote secured 1 that even James 11. could not imprison to subjects at pleasure."