On April 26, 1866, the chairman of a select committee,[2] appointed to try the merits of the petition against the return of Sir Henry Hoare and Mr. Labouchere for the borough of New Windsor, on the grounds that it was obtained by means of bribery, treating, and undue influence, announced that the committee had arrived at the following determination:
"That Sir Henry Ainslie Hoare is not duly elected a burgess to serve in the present parliament for the borough of New Windsor. That Henry Labouchere, Esq., is not duly elected to serve in the present parliament for the borough of New Windsor. That Sir Henry Ainslie Hoare is, by his agents, guilty of bribery. That it has been proved that various acts of bribery have been committed by the agents of the sitting members by the engagement of an excessive number of public houses in which it was proved that none of the legitimate business of the election was transacted, and for which sums varying from £10 to £20 were paid. That it has not been proved that such acts were committed with the knowledge or consent of the said Sir Henry Hoare and the said Henry Labouchere, Esq. That the committee have no reason to believe that bribery and corruption extensively prevailed at the last election for the borough of New Windsor."
The committee had sat for six days before the above decision was arrived at, and many were the entertaining encounters between the defendants' counsel, the great Mr. Serjeant Ballantine, and the witnesses for the petitioners. One of the latter explained that he had voted for the Conservatives because Mr. Vansittart was a "very nice old man." Under cross-examination it was elicited with difficulty that Mr. Vansittart had not given his wife and daughter each a new dress. Being further pressed, he announced that he could prove it. "How?" questioned the counsel. "I haven't got no wife nor no daughter," complained the witness. A charge of presenting a silk gown to the wife of one of the electors was preferred against Henry Labouchere. He did not deny having done so. "The lady in question," he explained, "was extremely good-looking, and I have frequently noticed that a present of finery is a simple way to win the female heart. I regret that, in the particular case, I was unsuccessful, but, good God, you do not insinuate for a moment, do you, that I intended her husband to know anything about the affair?"
The line of defence taken up by Labouchere will easily be seen by reading the letter he sent to the Times the day after the committee had reached their decision. I give it in full, with the exception of some sentences that have already been quoted:
ALBANY, April 26.
SIR,—In an article to-day on the recent decision of the Election Committees, you allude to the case of Windsor.
As your observations tend to lead those who read them to form the conclusion that my late constituents are somewhat corrupt, in justice to them, I should feel obliged to you to allow me to say a few words in their defence. It may be useful to future candidates to know on what grounds Sir Henry Hoare and I have been unseated....
We were petitioned against on the usual charges of bribery and intimidation. To the charges of direct bribery and indirectly bribing by the promise of work we replied, I believe, to the satisfaction of the Committee. The case of the petitioners rested upon the charge that we had engaged too many committee rooms.
The Committee unseated us because: "It had been proved that acts of bribery had been committed by the engagement, by the agents of the sitting members, of an excessive number of public houses, in which it was proved that none of the legitimate business of the election was transacted, and for which sums varying from £10 to £20 were paid. That it has not been proved that such acts were committed with the knowledge or consent of the said Sir Henry Hoare and the said Henry Labouchere."
Now this decision must have been come to on the supposition that Sir Henry Hoare and I were responsible for the eleven committee rooms, paid for by Mr. Flower, because we both swore that the nine committee rooms were taken with "knowledge and consent." The Committee consequently must have concluded either that Mr. Flower, Mr. Durrant, Sir H. Hoare, and myself were guilty of perjury in swearing that the payment by Mr. Flower was bona fide, or that Sir H. Hoare and I, in taking on agents in May, became responsible for what these agents had done in the interests of a third party during the winter.
Our case rested on the fact that "none of the legitimate business of the election" was transacted in Mr. Flower's public houses, and that if a bill with the words "Committee Rooms" was hung over any room in Mr. Flower's public houses it was because the publicans considered they would advertise their own political principles by showing that they had been engaged by a Liberal candidate who had retired. Every one knows that, if an electioneering bill over a public house is an advertisement for a candidate, it is also an advertisement for the public house, and that publicans like it to be supposed that they belong to one or other of the parties during a contested election. As a matter of fact some of Mr. Flower's publicans did not vote for me.
I may then fairly state that my late colleague and I were unseated because one of our agents had been concerned, months before he became our agent, in taking public houses in undue numbers for Mr. Flower.
Now, sir, I would venture to call the attention of the Legislature to the new and strange principle of jurisprudence on which the decision of the Windsor Election Committee has been based. I do so in the interests of all candidates, for, as far as I am concerned, I have unfortunately no appeal against the decision.
It is sufficiently difficult to prevent over zealous committee men and agents from compromising their candidate during the election; but, if he is to be retrospectively responsible for all their previous acts, I venture to say that no candidate can expect to hold his seat against a petition. Were the retrospective responsibility introduced into the procedure of courts of law no man would be safe. I might, sir, to-morrow have the advantage of making your acquaintance. Some days later I might take a servant whom you had formerly employed. Ought I to be hung if it were subsequently shown that you and the servant had murdered some one last January in London, while I was in Italy?
Were I still a member of the Legislature, I should myself point out the necessity of a reform in the composition of election committees. As an elector of Westminster, I shall, through my representative, Capt. Grosvenor, present a petition to the House of Commons praying that some alteration be made in the present system, and that a properly qualified judge be added to every committee to explain the elementary principles of jurisprudence to well-intentioned gentlemen who know nothing about them.[3]—I am, Sir, Your obedient servant,
H. LABOUCHERE.
A number of extremely interesting letters appeared in the Times, on the subject of the New Windsor Election Petition, one other, only, of which I shall quote, as it puts the case for Mr. Labouchere and his colleagues in a perfectly clear light. It runs as follows:
SIR,—My name having prominently appeared in the proceeding before the Election Committee in this case, and in communications made to you by Sir Henry Hoare and Mr. Labouchere, complaining of the decision of the committee, I trust you will not refuse me an opportunity of corroborating their statements. I may say, as a prelude, that the agents had the most distinct directions to do nothing in contradiction of the statutes relating to the election of members to serve in Parliament, and I proved, in evidence, my written instructions to that effect.
Sir Henry Hoare and Mr. Labouchere, being aware that Mr. Flower had retired by reason of his belief that he had been compromised by his agents, were most anxious to avoid becoming in any way identified with their proceedings; and, as regards the public houses, which had been taken on his behalf, the late members entirely repudiated, both personally, and through me, having anything whatever to do with them.
No one had authority to hire committee rooms but Mr. Last, the head agent at Windsor, and no complaint is made in the Committee's Report in respect of the nine houses engaged by him. Not a shilling has, to my knowledge or belief, been paid, or promised on account, of what I may, for brevity, call "Mr. Flower's public houses"; so that, in fact, these houses were neither hired by, paid for, nor used by the late members or their agents.
The unseating, therefore, of the late members for New Windsor upon the grounds stated in the Report of the Committee is, I venture to suggest, unprecedented in the annals of election petitions, and affords just ground for complaint, and for giving, in future cases some appeal, where there may be a similar miscarriage of justice.[4]—I am, Sir, Your obedient servant,
G. J. DURRANT.
Henry Labouchere made his maiden speech during the six months that he was member for New Windsor. It was upon an uninteresting and complicated subject—namely, the inadequacy of our Neutrality Law to enable us to fulfil our international obligations towards foreign countries. The debate, begun in February, continued well into the March of 1866. Labouchere made his speech on the 22nd of February. During the course of it he said that, having passed ten years in the Diplomatic Service, he had given some consideration to the subject of International Law, which had led him to believe that, from defects and inefficiency, our Neutrality Law was fraught not only with future danger to ourselves, but was calculated to prevent us from acting justly towards our Allies. He quoted, in support of his argument, the relations of England with the United States of America, the sympathy of America with Fenianism, and our loss of commerce with America.[5] On March 7 he voted in favour of the Church Rates Abolition Bill, which was read for the second time on that day and committed.
Of course he was very funny on the subject of the election at New Windsor. He was fond of relating how it was that he first became an M.P. "I had to kiss the babies," he said, "pay compliments to their mothers, and explain the beauties of Liberalism to their fathers, who never could be got to say how they would vote. On the day of the election everything turned upon half a dozen votes. I remember one Tory went out to fish in a punt, and the boatman who accompanied him was induced to keep him well out in the middle of the river, until the polling hour had passed. Another aged and decrepid Tory was kept in the house by having cabs run at him whenever he tried to issue from his door. Finally the Liberals won the day. On this the Tories petitioned. The committee decided that there had been no bribery, but unseated my colleague and myself because they thought that we had hired an excessive number of committee rooms."
And again: "One man at this election amused me. He hung about outside my committee room, and whenever he saw me he wrung my hand. On my first interview with this patriot, he informed me that, at an early hour of the morning, he had personated Dr. Cumming, and had voted for me as that divine. Each time I saw him during the day, he said that he had been personating some one, and always a clergyman. I remonstrated with him but uselessly."
The playwright, Herman Merivale, tells an anecdote about Henry Labouchere, in connection with the Windsor election, which it is very probable he heard from the whilom member himself. "Lord Taunton," writes Merivale, "uncle and precursor of our more famous Labby, is fabled to have lived in a general state of alarm at the strange proclivities of that unchastened heir, who has furnished the world with more amusing stories of a curious humour than any public man of his time. It is said that when Lord Taunton heard that his nephew contemplated public life, and proposed to stand for one of the county divisions in the district, he was much pleased at such a sign of grace, and asked if he could do anything for him. 'Really I think not,' replied the younger Henry, 'but I don't know. If you would put on your peer's robes, and walk arm-in-arm with me down the High Street of Windsor, it might have a good effect."[6]
Another opportunity soon occurred for Labouchere to re-enter the House of Commons. On the death of Mr. Robert Hanbury, one of the members for Middlesex, he presented himself to the electors, and was returned without opposition, on April 16, 1867. An extract from his address to the electors, dated March 29, is not without interest, as in it he unblushingly gives expression to the democratic principles to which he remained so faithful throughout his career. "Should you do me the honour," he said, "to return me to Parliament, it would be my first duty to co-operate with those who desire to effect the passage of an honest and straightforward measure of reform—such a measure as would prove to the large body of artisans and working men, whom I hold to be entitled to the franchise, that the House of Commons is not afraid of the people, nor averse to the free extension of political privileges, nor disposed to deny to the intelligent operatives a share in the government of the country to whose burdens they are called upon to contribute. If the Reform Bill proposed by the Tory Ministry is not capable of adaptation to such an end, I should not hesitate to give my adherence to any cause which may seem the most calculated to attain the desired object."[7]
While he was member for Middlesex, Labouchere was assiduous in his parliamentary duties. He spoke frequently and to the point, on such subjects as the "Expenses of Voters,"[8] on "the Sale of Liquor on Sundays Bill"[9] (a characteristically amusing speech), on "Licences" (Brewers'),[10] on the "Military Knights of Windsor attending Church,"[11] on "Appeals in the House of Lords."[12] He objected to a vote to complete the sum of £2135 for building new Embassy houses in Madrid and Paris,[13] and offered some practical suggestions as to the building (or buying) of new Embassy buildings at Therapia.[14]
In short, he was an active and useful member. The speeches which have been most frequently quoted are the ones which he made on May 14, protesting against a vote of £137,524, for the upkeep of the Royal Parks and Pleasure Grounds,[15] and his two speeches on the Public Schools Bill.[16] In the former he asserted that it was unjust and quite illogical to prohibit the entrance of cabs into Hyde Park. Most of his friends, he announced, were not in a position to keep their own carriages, yet they passionately longed to drive about in the haunts of fashion. He himself suffered cruelly under the same longing and disability, and such an exclusion, he explained, was quite incompatible with the spirit of Liberalism. He referred to the regulations concerning the public parks of Vienna and Paris to show that the prejudice against hired vehicles was entirely British and snobbish.
On another occasion, Mr. Lowe had moved a clause to the effect that boys educated at public schools should be examined once a year, by an Inspector of Education, in simple reading, writing, and arithmetic, and that a report as to their attainments should be laid before Parliament.
On this Labouchere made an excellent speech. In the course of it, he said that he hoped Mr. Lowe's clause would be pressed to a division, because it was evident that most pupils at public schools did not know as much as an average charity boy. Complaint had been made that the whole time of public school boys was taken up by the study of Latin and Greek, but, as a matter of fact, they learned very little of these languages. An ordinarily educated German could converse with a foreigner in Latin, if the two had no other language in common, but how many Englishmen carried from a public school sufficient Latin to do this? He confessed that he himself, although he might be able to translate some half a dozen words of Latin, was wholly unable to translate a sentence of Greek, although he had studied those languages for years at a public school. He complained that this ignorance was the fault of a system, and the misfortune of those who were obliged to undergo it.
Mr. Labouchere used to relate the following reminiscence of the days when he was member for Middlesex: "It is a curious fact—such is the irony of fate—that these dues (the Middlesex Coal Dues) were once prolonged owing to me. About twenty years ago, I was member for Middlesex. A Bill was brought forward to prolong the dues in order to borrow the money for certain Metropolitan improvements. Now the dues are collected from the inhabitants, not only of the metropolis, but of all Middlesex. My constituents wanted the bridges over the Thames and the Lea, beyond the Metropolitan area, to be freed. So I persistently opposed the Bill by much talking, by amendments, and other such devices (for although blocking had not been invented, obstruction was even then not without its resources). This led to negotiation, and it was finally agreed that the prolongation should be for a still longer period than was proposed by the Bill, in order that money should also be borrowed to free the bridges."[17]
Lord Derby's administration, under which Labouchere had become one of the Liberal members for Middlesex, was succeeded by the first administration of Mr. Disraeli. In December, 1868, the General Election took place, by which Mr. Gladstone, in his turn, was put, for the first time, at the head of Queen Victoria's Government. Mr. Labouchere presented himself for re-election at Middlesex in November. It was at first thought that both the sitting members, himself and Lord Enfield, would have a quiet "walk-over." The Conservatives, however, were determined to put forward at least one candidate, and they selected Lord George Hamilton, the third son of the Duke of Abercorn.
On November 2, both Henry Labouchere and Lord Enfield issued their addresses, Lord Enfield appealing to his electors on grounds no more vital than that he had represented Middlesex in Parliament for the last eleven years, and Mr. Labouchere because he frankly avowed himself in favour of the disestablishment of the Anglican Church in Ireland as being likely to strengthen the establishment of the Church of England in the sister isle, and, to quote verbatim from his speech: "I shall," he said, "oppose the proposal which was made last year by the Government of Mr. Disraeli to endow a Roman Catholic university. While I respect the sincere convictions of my Roman Catholic countrymen and desire that their religious convictions should not subject them either to civil or political disqualification, I do not think that their Church or their educational establishments should have any portion of the revenues now enjoyed by the established Church." He went on to say: "Since a Conservative Government has been in power the public departments have vied with each other in extravagance. The efforts of private members in which I have joined have proved ineffectual to check the waste. The sooner Mr. Gladstone is in office the better for the taxpayer."[18]
The two Liberal candidates made public speeches to their electors on the same day that they issued their addresses. Labouchere made his in the British Schools at Brentford, and the points on which he argued were the disestablishment of the Irish Church and the waste of public money. The selection of Lord George Hamilton as the Conservative candidate gave him an opportunity of making some extremely annoying remarks. He referred to him as "a young gentleman who had lately joined the army—an unfledged ensign who was getting on with the goose step and preparing himself for the onerous duties connected with the Horse Guards," and other taunting remarks of a similar nature.
The embryo M.P., on November 9, stung to madness by Labouchere's witticisms, boldly announced himself as his opponent in particular. He hotly denied that his father had received annually for many years a large sum of money from the State and then had been made a duke for his kindness in having accepted it. The Conservative meeting at which the young guardsman spoke would have been a decided political success had it not been for the zeal of the gentleman who seconded the vote of confidence. He remarked that, ever since the day when King John had signed the Magna Charta, the people of this country had been indebted to the aristocracy for all the liberties enjoyed in the Empire. Storms of groans and hisses met his well-meant remark, and though the vote of confidence was passed, the show of hands was manifestly against it.[19]
But the real interest of the election was centred in the personal quarrel between the Liberal candidates, which resulted in a Tory being returned for Middlesex. They appeared each to be possessed with an ungovernable hatred for the other, which was extremely prejudicial to their cause. The occasion of their public rupture was a dispute over the selection of electioneering agents, and by November 12 the attitude of the belligerents had become so extremely abusive that an important conference of Liberals from all parts of Middlesex had to be convened to consider the disunited state of their interest, more especially as it related to the relative bearing of the candidates towards each other.
Whereupon Labouchere and Enfield each addressed a public meeting and gave their separate versions of the quarrel. The delight of the Tories was excessive, and they did all they could to foment the affair. The Times rose to unaccustomed heights of irony in a leading article occasioned by the following not exactly conciliatory letter addressed by Labouchere to its editor:
SIR,—In the interests of the party Lord Enfield and I would do well to adjourn the discussion of all personal differences until after the Election. Lord Enfield had distinctly refused to unite before those differences arose; our discussion therefore has nothing to do with our political disunion.
The constituency wish our union, I wish it too—but personal relations need not be renewed. Lord Enfield considers himself and Lord George Hamilton to be what he is pleased to call "scions of a noble stock." I am a man of the middle class. He considers himself my superior. Let us agree to differ on this point.—Yours truly,
HENRY LABOUCHERE.
"It is fortunate," remarked the Times, "that the Liberal majority bids fair to be a large one, for otherwise the future historians of Great Britain might have a somewhat undignified episode to narrate in the electioneering contest of 1868, between the two great parties of the State. If the Liberals and the Conservatives happened to be running each other so closely that one seat more or less might determine the policy of the new Parliament, the Middlesex election would probably have an odd part to play in British annals. Every reader of Liberal imagination can easily conjure up for himself a picture of the calamities that might, under evil stars, overtake this country if the Liberals found themselves not strong enough to carry out their present programme, and the Irish Church were left still standing, with Ireland, as the natural result of so much anxious and fruitless agitation, more discontented than ever. Let him then suppose that all these imagined misfortunes had to be borne in consequence of his party having lost a seat for Middlesex, because Lord Enfield objects 'on personal grounds' to Mr. Labouchere! Lord Chesterfield has told us that great events are really due to much smaller causes than historians, with a duly jealous regard for the dignity of their profession, dare admit. The Liberal majority in the next Parliament might, if it so happened, be lost and the programme of national policy at a critical moment reversed because Mr. Labouchere has called Lord Enfield 'a sneak,' and Lord Enfield objects to Mr. Labouchere's want of blue blood! We doubt whether Gibbon himself could give the proper professional air of historical dignity to such an episode in the decline and fall of Great Britain as this. According to the first report of this squabble we read, Lord Enfield distinctly refused to meet Mr. Labouchere, while Mr. Labouchere, after showing that he had hitherto all along conducted himself as a very model of meekness, bearing endless snubs and rebuffs from his haughty adversary for the public good, suddenly turned round and insisted that he would 'fight single-handed' without any reference to his brother Liberal. It appears that, if the Liberals work properly, the Conservative candidate, despite all the advantages of high birth and impetuous youth, ought to be beaten, but that otherwise he has a chance of success. It would be too bad if a Liberal seat were thus endangered, and we trust Lord Enfield will accept Mr. Labouchere's compromise, and console himself by reflecting that he can still object as strenuously as ever to his plebeian adversary in private."[20]
Lord Enfield protested angrily in the next day's Times against the accusation of having referred to himself as a "scion of a noble house," and, oddly enough, his letter appeared just below one sent to the paper by the Committee of the Reform Club:
THE REFORM CLUB, Monday Evening.
The Committee of the Reform Club having, in consequence of the suggestions which have been made to them, taken into consideration the differences between Lord Enfield and myself, and having expressed an opinion that it is due to Lord Enfield that I should withdraw certain offensive expressions which I used concerning him, and that I should now express my regret for having used them, and, as I am now informed by the Committee that they have ascertained from Lord Enfield that he had no intention of doubting my word, as I imagined he did, on the occasion I referred to, I have no hesitation in at once acting on the advice of the Committee.
H. LABOUCHERE.
A patch was thus temporarily placed over the breach, for the benefit of the public, but the electors of Middlesex had no delusions on the subject.
The meeting for the nomination of candidates at Brentford was a rowdy affair, the proceedings being of a most disorderly nature. The re-election of Lord Enfield was proposed and the proposition was received with groans and hisses. Then Labouchere's re-election was proposed. At that point the disorder became uncontrollable. The interruption had commenced with the appearance of a band of roughs, wearing the Conservative card in their hats, who began to hoot and groan at the Liberal speakers. After this had gone on for a few minutes, another band, not quite so numerous, but of the same low class, poured into the square, bearing the Liberal cards on their hats. The two rival factions severally hooted the speaker on the opposite side. The roughs who were first in the field (the Conservatives had engaged a band of a hundred roughs, seven of whom were known to be prize-fighters) then began to hustle the others, and had nearly borne them out of the square, when the police made a charge upon them, but without using their staves, and for a moment restored order. The same disorderly conduct was, however, renewed and several fights took place under the eyes of the sheriffs. The crowd swayed to and fro, and the din and uproar was so continuous and incessant that the rest of the proceedings had to be carried on in dumb show. When the sheriff called for a show of hands for Lord Enfield every hand on the right of a line drawn from the centre of the hustings was held up. For Mr. Labouchere about the same number seemed to go up. For Lord George Hamilton all the hands on the left of the line went up. The numbers seemed pretty nearly divided. It at first appeared that Mr. Labouchere had the show of hands, and the sheriffs had, it was believed, decided, or were about to decide, in his favour, when it was pointed out to them that many Conservatives had held up their hands for Lord Enfield, while, on the other hand, all the Liberals had held up both their hands for Mr. Labouchere. The sheriffs, after consultation, accordingly declared that the show of hands was in favour of Lord Enfield and Lord George Hamilton.
The election took place on November 24, and the result of the poll was as follows:
Before the declaration of the poll, two cabs with placards of "Plump for Enfield" were seen in the streets, which were followed by others bearing "Plump for Labouchere." This was believed to have been a ruse of the enemy, but there were some who thought it was a joke of Labouchere's. He however vehemently denied any knowledge of it. There was huge excitement at the official declaration of the poll. Henry Labouchere, "the real Liberal candidate," as he was called, had been met by his friends at Kew Bridge, who had accompanied him to the meeting. He was evidently the favourite,[21] and the populace took out his horses and insisted upon dragging his carriage through the town. Enfield was hissed and hooted. Labouchere made a dignified speech, in which he referred to the practical disenfranchisement of Middlesex, by its election of a Conservative and a Liberal, and he insisted strongly and ably upon the necessity of organisation in all electioneering work.
Mr. Labouchere published the following absurd reminiscence of this election in an early number of Truth: "A candidate knows very little of the details of his election, but, so far as I could make out, dead men played a very important part, on both sides, in this contest between Lord George and me. No sooner were the booths open than men long removed from party strife rose from their graves, and hurriedly voted either for him or for me."[22]
An amusing episode of the Middlesex election of 1868 was the mistake which the supporters of Mr. Labouchere made in mistaking Mr. Henry Irving for their defeated candidate. Mr. Labouchere himself related the story some sixteen years later, when there was a report current that the famous actor was about to offer himself as a parliamentary candidate. "Irving did once appear upon the hustings," he said, "and it was in this wise. I was the defeated candidate at a Middlesex election. Those were the days of hustings and displays, and it was the fashion for each candidate to go down to Brentford in a carriage and four to thank his supporters. On the morning of the day when I had to perform this function, Irving called upon me, and I invited him to accompany me. Down we drove. I made an inaudible speech to a mob, and we re-entered our carriage to return to London. In a large constituency like Middlesex, few know the candidates by sight. Irving felt it his duty to assume a mine de circonstance. He folded his arms, pressed his hat over his brows, and was every inch the baffled politician—defeated, sad, but yet sternly resigned to his fate. In this character he was so impressive that the crowd came to the conclusion that he was the defeated candidate. So woebegone, and so solemnly dignified, did he look that they were overcome with emotion, and, to show their sympathy, they took the horses out of the carriage and dragged it back to London. When they left us, I got up to thank them, but this did not dispel the illusion. 'Poor fellow,' I heard them say, as they watched Irving, 'his feelings are too much for him,' and they patted him, shook hands with him, and thanked him."[23]
A Times leader of November 30 made the following comments on the Middlesex election: "In Middlesex, the minority has been allowed not only a representative, but a place at the head of the poll, by the selection of two Liberal candidates, almost avowedly in competition, and with some unexplained circumstance of personal antagonism. Though it is likely enough many of the votes have been split between the two successful candidates, it is evident on the face of the return that a better selected pair of Liberal candidates might have carried both seats. Few persons will quarrel with a result which gives one of the most important minorities in the kingdom a voice in Parliament, but the result is a fluke rather than the consequence of a sound intention or of a wise provision of law."
At the General Election of 1874, Mr. Labouchere made another attempt to enter the House of Commons. He first offered himself at Southwark, but, as he was one of six Liberal candidates, he withdrew, and presented himself for election at Nottingham. At Nottingham also there was a superfluity of Liberal candidates, but two of these, Mr. Labouchere and Mr. Laycock, would probably have got in, had it not been for the determined antagonism of Mr. Heath, the Labour candidate, to Mr. Labouchere. It was also asserted by the leading Liberals of the place that the seats were lost, because Mr. Labouchere's advanced Radicalism scandalised the Liberal supporters. Be that as it may, the result of the election was that two Conservatives were returned for Nottingham. Mr. Labouchere was as usual philosophical upon the subject of his unsuccessful election: "When one is in," he said, "one wants to be out, and when one is out, one wants to be in. La Bruyère says that no married people ever pass a week without wishing, at least once, that they were unmarried, and so I suspect it is with most M.P.'s."
There were many amusing stories about Mr. Labouchere current at this time. One of the best that appeared in the Nottingham papers during the election was the following: "He went to a fancy dress ball in London, wearing diplomatic uniform, and on presenting himself at the door, he was refused admission by a policeman. 'Why?' said Mr. Labouchere. 'Because no one is allowed here in a diplomatic uniform,' said the 'bobby.' 'Confound your impudence,' growled the ex-member for Middlesex, 'I will go in.' 'Not in diplomatic dress, no one's to pass here in diplomatic togs,' repeated Mr. Bluebottle; 'my order is to watch this door for that special purpose.' 'What's your name, scoundrel?' yelled the financial editor of the World; 'my name is Labouchere, and I will enter.' 'And mine,' rejoined the amateur policeman, 'is Lionel Brough.' They walked upstairs arm-in-arm together."
[1] Times, April 27, 1866.
[2] The committee was composed as follows: Mr. John Tomlinson Hibbert (Chairman), Mr. Robert Dalglish, Mr. Arthur Wellesley Peel, Hon. Fredk. Stanley, and Major Waterhouse. It sat for six days. The counsel for the petitioners were: Mr. W. H. Cooke, Q.C., Mr. Matthews, and Mr. Campbell Bruce. For the defendants: Mr. Serjeant Ballantine and Mr. Biron.
[3] Times, April 27, 1866.
[4] Times, April 27, 1866.
[5] Hansard, vol. 181, s. 3.
[6] Herman Merivale, Bar, Stage, and Platform.
[7] Times, April 2, 1867.
[8] Times, July 5, 1867.
[9] Times, March 19, 1868.
[10] Times, March 25, 1868.
[11] Times, June 24, 1868.
[12] Times, May 29, 1868.
[13] Times, May 1, 1868.
[14] Times, April 21, 1868.
[15] Times, May 15, 1868.
[16] Times, June 17 and 24, 1868.
[17] Truth, November 25, 1886.
[18] Times, November 3, 1868.
[19] Times, November 10, 1868.
[20] Times, November 14, 1868.
[21] Times, November 27, 1868.
[22] Truth, April, 1878.
[23] Truth, April 24, 1884.
(1864-1880)
After he had been unseated for Windsor, Mr. Labouchere went abroad for some months, most of which time he spent at Nice. He also went to Florence, and was at Homburg, in 1868, just before the General Election. His connection with journalism began at this period, as he sent frequent letters to the Daily News, both from Nice and Florence. These were always remarkable for their pithiness and wit, although he had by no means developed the style which he brought to perfection two years later as "The Besieged Resident," and which made his fame as a journalist. In 1868, he became part proprietor of the Daily News, which it was decided to issue for the future as a penny paper.[1] Sir John Robinson thus describes the syndicate of which Mr. Labouchere became a member: "The proprietors of the Daily News, a small syndicate which never exceeded ten men, were a mixed body, hardly any two of whom had anything in common. The supreme control in the ultimate resort rested with three of them, Mr. Henry Oppenheim, the well-known financier, with politics of no very decided kind; Mr. Arnold Morley, a Right Honourable, an ex-party Whip, and a typical ministerial Liberal; and Mr. Labouchere, the Radical, financier, freelance. Others had but a small holding, and practically did not count, save as regards any moral influence they might bring to bear on their colleagues at Board meetings."[2]
The new editor selected for the penny Daily News was Mr. Frank Hill, but the paper was run at a loss until the winter of 1870, when the special war news published in its columns caused the circulation to increase in one week from 50,000 to 150,000. Mr. Robinson, its far-seeing manager, attributed the success of the paper, at this period, first, to the excellence of his correspondents, and secondly, to his having insisted upon having the whole of his news telegraphed to London, instead of being transmitted by the post. The number of the correspondents on the staff of the Daily News during the war was seventeen, of which the chief was Mr. Archibald Forbes, who may be rightly described as a prince among journalists. Henry Labouchere too had the main heureuse where newspapers were concerned. His Paris letters were eagerly read all over the civilised world, the excitement and interest created by them being even more vehement in America than in London. The fortune of the Daily News was made,[3] and from then onwards for many years the great organ of Liberalism grew and flourished. When Mr. Labouchere sold his share[4] in 1895 he did so at a large profit. As I shall not have occasion to return again to Mr. Labouchere's financial connection with the Daily News, I shall give in this place an account Mr. Lionel Robinson recently wrote to me of the transaction: "So many contradictory statements have been put forward in the press with reference to the late Mr. Labouchere's pecuniary interest in the Daily News, that you may not be unwilling to find space for the recollections of one who heard at the time, and subsequently, various versions of the story. My own impression, derived from personal intercourse, is that some time about 1868 or a little later, Mr. Labouchere purchased a quarter share in the newspaper for about £14,000, and further, that the vendor was Mr. Henry Rawson of Manchester. I do not pretend to know what were the annual profits of the paper, beyond the fact that they increased enormously during the twenty years dating from the Austro-Prussian War and its subsequent developments. It was, therefore, not surprising that when Mr. Labouchere decided to sell his share in the paper it should have commanded a high price. I have heard it, from a certain distance of time from the event, placed as high as £92,000, but my personal recollection is that the sum mentioned by Mr. Labouchere was £62,000 or thereabouts."
In one of Mr. Labouchere's letters from Nice to the Daily News he gave a characteristic account of some of his compatriots abroad. The following quotation from it will show the reader that, if he had not yet acquired the style of his later work, the spirit of it was very active—the spirit which made him hate mediocrity and pretentiousness: "Here, as in almost every foreign watering-place, there is a colony of English Bohemians, who live among themselves, give each other tea parties and such mild festivities, frequent charity and other public balls, abuse each other and every one else, pet the English clergyman or denounce his doctrines, worry their Consul with every kind of complaint and requirement, and keep up a gallant and hopeless struggle to penetrate into foreign society. As most of them only speak their own language, as the men, who, no doubt, have many solid virtues, are devoid of the art of pleasing in a mixed society, and the women, pillars as they are of virtue, have little of the Siren about them, foreign society does not respond to their advances."[5]
Labouchere was not so successful over his speculation in theatre property. In the October of 1867, Messrs. Telbin and Moore did up the New Queen's Theatre, formerly St. Martin's Hall, in Long Acre, and it was opened under the management of Mr. Alfred Wigan, one of the most accomplished comedians of the day. Mr. Alfred Wigan had a mysterious partner in management, and Herman Merivale, who had written a most successful farce, as the curtain raiser for the new theatre, gives a charming little account of his discovery of the identity of the mysterious personage. Alfred Wigan soon wanted some melodrama for the theatre, and Merivale wrote a play. Wigan told him that he must submit it to his partner. "Two or three days afterwards," writes Merivale, "I was sent in fear and trembling to the manager's room at the Queen's, to meet the mysterious partner. I was introduced, and, sitting at the table with a cigarette in his mouth, I saw Labouchere. 'Good Lord!' he said, 'are you the eminent author?' 'Heavens!' quoth I, 'are you the mysterious partner?'
"Both of us had carefully concealed our hidden sin at the dinner party.[6] What struck me most was a small array of bills of the new play hung all round, each printed with a different title, that the mysterious partner might see which looked best. It was, at all events, bold expenditure. Time and the Hour was the title that the authors[7] had hit upon; and Labouchere decided that it should be chosen. 'It's a splendid title, I think,' he said. 'Delighted that you say so,' was my flattered answer. 'It really is, you know. Do for any play whatever that ever was written.'"[8]
Time and the Hour, as it turned out, was, in its way, a kind of curiosity. For the cast comprised, besides Wigan himself, a whole bouquet of coming managers, some of whom were at the beginning of their professional careers. There were J. L. Toole, Lionel Brough, John Clayton, and Charles Wyndham. Other plays acted at the Queen's Theatre under Mr. Labouchere's management were Tom Taylor's Twixt Axe and Crown, and H. J. Byron's Dearer than Life. In the former the lovely Mrs. Wybert Rousby flashed for the first time in her full beauty on the London stage, and in the latter the cast included Henry Irving, J. L. Toole, John Clayton, Lionel Brough, and Charles Wyndham, and last, but most important of all, as Lucy, that clever artist and fascinating personality, Henrietta Hodson, who afterwards became Mrs. Labouchere. Another star at the Queen's Theatre, during the first year of Mr. Labouchere's management, was Ellen Terry. She thus describes herself playing there in the Double Marriage. "As Rose de Beaurepaire," she writes, "I wore a white muslin Directoire dress and looked absurdly young. There was one curtain which used to convulse Wyndham. He had a line, 'Whose child is this?' and there was I looking a mere child myself, and with a bad cold in my head too, answering: 'It's bine!' The very thought of it used to send us off into fits of laughter."[9]
A contemporary picture of Mr. Labouchere at this time is given by Mr. George Augustus Sala, in his Life and Adventures. Mr. Labouchere had begged Sala to write him a play, full of exciting situations. "An appointment was made with him," said Sala, "to meet Halliday (another dramatic author) and myself at ten o'clock one evening at the Queen's Theatre. He was then one of the members for the County of Middlesex. He struck me as being in all respects a remarkable man, full of varied knowledge, full withal of humorous anecdotes, and with a mother wit very pleasant to listen to. His conversation was to me additionally interesting, because, when I was in Mexico, I had gone over most of the ground which he had travelled."
The first numbers of Truth abound with news of the Queen's Theatre, and the unvarnished accounts Mr. Labouchere gave of the contretemps that occurred during his management, and the strange, unexpected things that happened, possibly contributed to the lack of consideration he experienced as a theatrical manager. Here is part of an article devoted to the art of the stage, published during the first year of Truth: "The play on which I lost most was an adaptation of The Last Days of Pompeii. Everything went wrong in this piece. I wanted to have—after the manner of the ancients—acrobats dancing on the tight rope over the heads of the guests at a feast. The guests, however, absolutely declined to be danced over. Only one acrobat made his appearance. A rope was stretched for him, behind the revellers, and I trusted to stage illusion for the rest. The acrobat was a stout negro. Instead of lightly tripping it upon his rope, he moved about like an elephant, and finally fell off his rope, like a stricken buffalo. In the second act the head of a statue was to fall off, and to crush Mr. Ryder, who was a magician. There was a man inside the statue, whose mission was to push over its head. With folded arms and stern air, Mr. Ryder gazed at the statue, awaiting the portentous event that was to crush him to the earth, notwithstanding the mystic power that he wielded. The head remained firm on its neck. The man inside had solaced himself with so much beer, that he was drunk and incapable, and Mr. Ryder had, much to the amazement of the audience, to knock down the head that was to crush him. In the third act the stage represented a Roman amphitheatre. In the midst of a gorgeously dressed crowd sat Mr. Ryder. 'Bring forth the lion!' he said. The audience thrilled at the idea of a real lion being marched on to the stage. Now I had no lion, and I had discarded the idea of putting a lion skin on a donkey. An attendant therefore walked in and said, 'Sir, the lion will not come.' Those of the audience who were not hissing, roared with laughter. The last act was to represent the eruption of Vesuvius and the destruction of Pompeii. The mountain had only been painted just in time for the 'first night.' I had never seen it. What was my horror when the curtain rose upon a temple with a sort of large sugar loaf behind it. At first I could not imagine what was the meaning of this sugar loaf. But when it proceeded to emit crackers I found that it was Vesuvius!"[10]
Sometimes he let the theatre, and on that subject he was almost pathetic: "Whenever this theatre is to let," he wrote, "I am complimented by numerous persons with proposals which prove that I am regarded by them as the most credulous and confiding of human beings—hardly indeed a human being, but a simple, convenient lamb ... nothing that I can do convinces them that I am not a lamb covered with nice long wool and eager to be shorn. On these occasions I remember that the tempering of the wind to the shorn lamb is, after all, but a poetical figure, and therefore I take care to meet the tempest with a fleece on my back."[11] He had not a high opinion of dramatic artists, as men of business. "I confess," he said, "that for my own part I have never understood the meaning of high art in its dignified aspect. I never, in the course of my existence, came across one of its votaries—painter, sculptor, author, or architect—who was ready to sacrifice one farthing of his own at its shrine. I once was the owner of a theatre, and I was perpetually at war with authors and actors who wanted me to ruin myself on the altar of high art, but I soon found that this was a term which they used for their own fads. Once I produced a play by Charles Reade. It was a failure, and on the first night I was sitting with him in a box. 'They seem to be hissing, Mr. Reade,' I said. 'What of that?' he replied; 'if you want to please such a public as this, you should not come to me for a play.'"[12] He had an amusing story too to relate of how he rode roughshod over Tom Taylor's artistic prejudices by insisting upon a chemical fire being lit upon the stage at his production of the latter's Joan of Arc, in the flames of which the heroine (Mrs. Rousby) was to perish realistically, instead of being wafted to Heaven in the arms of angels, as the author had planned she should be. But the story of his theatre-management days that he was fondest of telling was in connection with the late Sir Henry Irving. The latter, at a big banquet he gave to a party of his friends, was relating some of the events of his professional career. "And to think, Labby," he said, turning to his old friend, "that I was once receiving five pounds a week from you!" "Three pounds, Henry, my boy," retorted Labouchere quickly, "only three."
He professed the greatest contempt, and considering the financial failure of his management of the Queen's Theatre, perhaps naturally so, for those stingy votaries of pleasure who were always cadging him for orders for his theatre. "Theirs," he said, "is the meanest, most sneaky and contemptible form of beggary." But he got the better of one of these beggars. One day his tailor asked him for an order. He sent it to him, but the next morning he sent the tailor an "order" entitling the bearer to a new suit of clothes. The tailor, realising the tit for tat, sensibly complied with the request, but ever afterwards bought his tickets for the "Queen's" in the conventional manner. Another set of persons who encountered his righteous wrath in his theatre days were the would-be dramatic authors. He described how hundreds of worthless plays were sent him, resembling, in their incoherence and lack of perspective, the crude pencil drawings of infants. He gave in Truth the opening of one of them, further than which, he explained, he did not read: "The broad Mississippi is seen rolling its turbid flood towards the ocean, and carrying with it the debris of a village. Steamers come and go on its surface. On a frail raft a man and a woman are crossing the river. Enter the negroes from a plantation monotonously singing."[13]
He attributed the failure of his own adaptation of Sardou's La Patrie to the narrow powers of appreciation possessed by Londoners. "They fancy," he wrote, "that no drama or melodrama can be good, which does not conform to certain rules. The heroine must be the purest and the best of her sex; she must engage in a struggle with adverse circumstances, and with bad men; and she must emerge, in the last act, triumphant. The audience, in fact, must leave the theatre, not only pleased with her acting, but with her. Now, the heroine of Fatherland is Dolores, and the plot turns upon her betrayal of her husband. This was fatal to the success of the play, but it is an open question whether it ought to have been fatal to it. Conventionalism is the bane of advance in art."
All things considered, it was not surprising that Mr. Labouchere's proprietorship of the Queen's Theatre was a financial failure. Joseph Hatton gives a curious description of the way in which Mr. Labouchere managed the business, the facts of which he got from the same personal interview already quoted: "Sometimes he brought out plays himself. He generally lost by them, but now and then had a success. Occasionally in the preparations for a new production he would go abroad. When particularly wanted by the management, he could not be found. The work went on, however, all the same, and so did the loss. Once he was advised to cram the house for a week with orders, so that nobody could get in. The traditional 'Full' was posted at all the entrances. He did this on condition that, after a week, every one should be compelled to pay. When the second week came the house was empty. Then the actors complained. They could not act to empty benches. 'Why don't you draw?' was Labouchere's reply to their grievance. 'Draw! confound it! Why don't you draw?' He announced Shakespearean revivals, proposing to produce one new play of the bard's in splendid style every year. Notices were put up at all the entrances, inviting the audiences to vote on the piece. For a long time he worked up quite an excitement by posting up the result of the voting. 'This was a capital idea; it increased the number who paid at the door immensely.' Nevertheless the Queen's did not prove a success, and it has lately been converted into a co-operative store."[14]
At every period of his life, Mr. Labouchere displayed all the happiest characteristics of the Bohemian, or, what comes to the same thing, the instincts of the real aristocrat. He was comfortably at home in whatever social milieu he happened to find himself—a camp of nomadic Indians, a Court ball, a rowdy hustings, the manager's room of a London theatre, the vie intime of a royal country house, or the bourgeois domesticity of a thrifty German home—and he was welcomed and appreciated in every one of them—except by the prigs and the bores.
He knew his London well. "I have lived in London many years. I have known the seamy side of London life for far more than a quarter of a century, and am familiar with every detail of the 'old days' as they are called. I can compare the present with the past, decency with disgust, order with license, and remember the time when we supped in a cellar under the Portico, where the Pall Mall restaurant now stands, when the Haymarket cafés were open as long as customers patronised them. I can recall the nights when Panton Street and Jermyn Street were lined with watchmen and confederates, and admittance was only gained to certain favoured meeting-places by giving a sign, or peeping through a slit in the door or guichet.... I have seen a Chancellor and a Cabinet Minister watching with amused gaze a scene, which was at least decorous on the surface, at the Argyll Rooms in Windmill Street, and, listening to excellent music, I have sat unnoticed up in the corner of the old Holborn Casino, where the Holborn restaurant now stands. I have seen some wild scenes at the Foley Street rooms (Mott's) in the early hours of the morning, and hideous scenes at 222 Piccadilly—the 'Pic' as it was then called—since pulled down and destroyed for the now palatial Criterion. In the warm summer nights I have driven down to Cremorne, and wandered there till the daylight, in lilac and purple, came out above the tall trees and put out the yellow glare of the gas. I have even condescended to the decorous dissipation of Caldwell's dancing rooms, beloved by milliners, and now turned into a National School. I have been an eye-witness of the ups and downs of London life, and the so-called humours of the West End. I have observed the contest between common-sense and prudery, between the men of liberal mind and those determined to make the vicious virtuous by Act of Parliament. I have lived through the changes of licensing rules and closing hours, and seen one place of amusement after another shut up and confiscated—the decorous tarred with the same brush as the dirty. Cremorne and the Holborn Casino bombarded equally with Mott's and the Piccadilly Saloon,..." he wrote in the course of an article, which ended with one of the most powerful indictments of British virtue ever published,[15] and it was during the sixteen years that elapsed between his departure from the Diplomatic Service and his entrance to the House as the "Christian" member for Northampton that he acquired most of his vast experimental knowledge of the artistic and vagabond side of human nature about town.
He was close upon fifty when he entered upon his serious Parliamentary life, which was, as all who knew him well are aware, but a phase, though an important one, in his extraordinarily varied career. Three episodes stand out with clearness, apart from his abortive electioneering experiences already described, in the years between 1864 and his first Northampton election—his residence in Paris throughout the siege, his connection with the World, as its financial editor, and his founding of his own weekly publication, Truth. The first of these is described in a separate chapter, and so, with equal necessity, is the third. For an account of how he came to be on the staff of the World we must go to the Recollections of the late Mr. Edmund Yates himself, who relates that, previous to launching the first number of his journal upon the public, he had issued a very original prospectus. "I had also sent a prospectus to Mr. Henry Labouchere," he continued, "with whom I had a slight acquaintance, and whose services as a literary freelance might, I thought, be utilised. Some days after, I saw Mr. Labouchere on the Cup Day at Ascot, seated on the box of a coach. I asked him if he had heard from me, and he said, 'Oh, yes,' adding that he 'thought the prospectus very funny.' 'But,' I said, 'will you help us in carrying it out—will you be one of us?' 'You don't mean to say,' he replied, 'that you actually mean to start a paper of the kind set forth?' I told him most assuredly we did, and that we wanted his assistance. He laughed more than ever, and said he would let me know about it. A few days after, I heard from him, proposing to write a series of city articles, which he actually commenced in the second number."
Labouchere's preliminary article in the World[16] was extremely droll. It began as follows: "Some years ago, Mr. John F. Walker, having derived a considerable fortune from cheating at cards in Mississippi steamboats, determined to enjoy his well-earned gains in his native city of New York, and purchased an excellent house in that metropolis. In order to add to his income he advertised that he was a 'reformed gambler,' and, for a consideration, would instruct novices in all the tricks of his trade. Mr. Walker was universally esteemed by his fellow-citizens, and died last year, greatly regretted by a numerous body of friends and admirers. In casting about for the city editor for our journal, we have fallen upon a gentleman, who, by promoting rotten companies, puffing worthless stock, and other disreputable, but strictly legal, devices, has earned a modest competence. He resides in a villa at Clapham, he attends church every Sunday with exemplary regularity, and is the centre of a most respectable circle of friends; many of his old associates still keep up their acquaintance with him, and therefore he is in a position to know all that passes in the city. This reformed speculator we have engaged to write our city article."
The staff of writers selected by Mr. Yates for the first year of the World was a singularly efficient one. It comprised, besides Mr. Labouchere, Mr. T. H. S. Escott, Dr. Birkbeck Hill, Lord Winchelsea (who contributed articles on racing and turf matters), M. Camilla Barrère, Mrs. Lynn Linton, Mr. F. I. Scudamore, Mr. Archibald Forbes, and Mr. Henry Lucy (who commenced, in the eighth number, his series of Parliamentary Sketches, "Under the Clock"). But, in spite of the excellent writers engaged on its production, the World did not sell well. Again it was the main heureuse of Henry Labouchere that gave the necessary push to make the new weekly go. Mr. Yates writes as follows: "Mr. Labouchere was dealing with City matters in a way which they had never been dealt with before, and ruthlessly attacking and denouncing Mr. Sampson, the city editor of the Times, whose position and virtue had hitherto been considered impregnable. All these features ... received due appreciation from our provincial confrères, and the 'trade,' but, as yet, they seemed to have made no impression on the public. We were in the desperate condition of having a good article to sell without the power of making that fact known. At last, and just in the nick of time, we obtained the requisite public notice, and without paying anything for it. A stockbroker, a member of the Stock Exchange, who conceived himself likely to be attacked for certain practices by Mr. Labouchere in the city article, threatened to horsewhip that gentleman, should such observations appear, and Mr. Labouchere had the would-be assailant brought before the Lord Mayor for threatening to commit a breach of the peace. The case was really a trivial one, and it was settled by the defendant being bound over in sureties for good behaviour. But it had been argued at full length, each side being represented by eminent lawyers; Mr. Thesiger, Q.C., appeared for the defendant and Mr. (afterwards Sir) George Lewis for Mr. Labouchere. A great deal was said about the World, and its determination to purge Capel Court of all engaged in iniquitous dealings. All that was said was reported at length in the daily papers. The effect was instantaneous; the circulation rose at once, and the next week showed a very large increase of advertisements."
The case, as Mr. Yates says, was a trivial one, but remarkable for Mr. Labouchere's irresistibly funny way of giving evidence. It was tried on October 14, 1874, at the Guild Hall, and in answer to the Lord Mayor, he gave the most absurd account of the assault as it occurred:
"'I said to him (Mr. Abbott): "I presume that if you were attacked in a newspaper unfairly, you would bring an action for libel, and if you won it you would get heavy damages." He replied: "I should not go into Court; I know what newspapers want; they always want to go into Court, it is a fine advertisement for them. I should horsewhip the man." "Well," I said, "under the circumstances, the observation is a personal one, and I reply to you, in the words of Dr. Johnson, 'I shall not be deterred from unmasking a scoundrel by the menaces of a ruffian.'" He then said he presumed I meant this for him, or something of that sort. I said, "Well, it looks like it. You were just now talking about horsewhipping; why don't you begin?"'
"Mr. Thesiger: 'In that tone of voice?'
"'Very much like that,' drawled on Mr. Labouchere. 'He then stared at me, and I repeated: "Well, why don't you begin?" I don't know what his object was, but he rolled himself about and threw up his hands. I presume he intended to frighten me by an exhibition of what he imagined to be a pugilistic attitude more than anything else. I again said: "Why do you not begin?" He then hit me a blow."
"Have you any fear of Mr. Abbott?" asked Mr. Lewis, later on in the proceedings. "Well, no," replied Mr. Labouchere. "When I was at Spezia, I used to bathe a good deal in the Gulf and there were a quantity of porpoises—" But what Mr. Abbott's behaviour had to with porpoises, was never revealed to the Court, for, in spite of the hisses of the audience, who wanted to hear the end of Mr. Labouchere's story, Mr. Thesiger interrupted, saying sharply: "This is really making a farce of a Court of Justice."