EXTRAORDINARY SPEECH BY AN M.P.

Southland Times, Issue 2019, 18 November 1874, Page 3

EXTRAORDINARY SPEECH BY AN M.P.

Sir J.D. Astley, Barfc., M.P., m responding to the toast of " The county members," at the ram Bhow dinner at Owersby, North Lincolnshire, said he was very proud of representing this fine old corner of North Lincolnshire. The last time he was amongst them he would have bet anyone 1,000 to 5 that he would never be in the House. (Laughter.) His grandfather had spent a thundering lot of money in that game, but be had always put down in his book a memorandum to keep out of that way. (Laughter and applause.) He (the speaker) had not, however, spent a shilling over his election, and he must say he felt as j proud as old Lucifer of the honor which they had conferred upon him. (Lau^h ter.) But the House of Commons was not altogether a place to be coveted ordesired, and he doubted whether any gentleman who was used to the country would care to be shut up there hour alter hour, day and night. There were, besides, a lot of Irish chaps (laughter) in the House, who sometimes made him very angry. He thought there were about eixtv of these fellows in the House, and he believed about forty of them were the most confounded rascals he ever saw. (Laughter and applause). He did not find fault with anybody because he might hold different opinions to him, but he entirely lost his patience when those " covies" (laughter) came into the House and took up the whole of an afternoon and carried on far into the night, when some pressing motion was coming on, talking about their little rotten Ireland— (laughter) — whether the whiskey was to be Irish or Scotch, or whether the potatoes should be kidneys or something else. (Renewed laughter.) Such discussions as thege was one of the things which drove him clean out of the House, and tended to make a man more careless than be should be. These forty Irish rascals to whom he had referred took up more time than all the rest of the members, and used much stronger language; but, fortunately, they were divided amongst themselves. Once a discussion was got up about a prosecution against a newspaper in Ireland, called the Flag of Ireland. They began to talk about how badly Ireland was used, because the editor of that paper — they could easily imagine from its name what it was — was prosecuted, and eight or nine of them got up and almost cried about " poor Ireland ! " (Roars of laughter.) Another gentleman from Ireland, who was so much of an Englishman as to keep a pack of hounds, however, got up and said he hoped that " England and the English people would not take what had been said as the general feeling of Ireland, because it was only the opinions expressed by the miserable scribes who wrote in the paper in question which were represented." It was true that there were several very farseeing men amongst the party, but a great many had been returned to Parliament simply iv the interest of Home Eule.