AMUSING SCENE IN PARLIAMENT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVIII, Issue 6213, 15 October 1881, Page 7

AMUSING SCENE IN PARLIAMENT.

Mr. Gladstone's hat episode lately was equalled by a scene in the dining room of the House of Commons. With great labour on tho part of the whips, a strong force of members was got down to the House on Aug. 9, but it was not found quite so easy to keep them there as long as their services were required. Some famished members, weary of waiting theii turn at the crowded diningroom, which could not meet the demands for refreshment, went off to their clubs ; but the watchful whips barred the door. Lingering like the Peri at the gates of the gastronomic, Paradise, hungry members awaited outside tlieir turn for a vacant place. Hard as was their fate, it was not so hard as the lot of some inside tho dining-room, who, while devouring soup or fish like a Yankee at a railway station who has payed his dollar to eat as he pleases, were suddenly summoned by the division bell, which frequently sounded during the dinner hour. Returning to the committee of " supply of the iutier man" to engage in a fresh conflict with half-eaten fish or soup, the members could not identify tlieir x'latcs. A series of wrangles began rivalling those of the Land Bill, and grave M. P.'s might be seen very much like the monkeys in a wild beast show, .after each had eaten the other's dinner, expecting to finish his own !