Today it was
Lord HALDANE'S turn to oblige, and he brought in a Bill to enable
Scotswomen to become Advocates and Law Agents. Lord HALSBURY'S
contribution to the work of feminine emancipation has not yet been
announced. The rumour that a deputation of ladies recently approached
him with a proposal that they should be eligible for judicial
office--"Scarlet and ermine are _so_ becoming"--and that he put them
off with the old joke about there being "enough old women on the Bench
already" is, of course, apocryphal.
Not infrequently in the official reports of the Lords' debates a
speech begins thus: "Lord ---- (_who was indistinctly heard_)." The
Commons' report might well adopt this salutary practice as a warning
to Members who persistently mumble, or who address their remarks to
the body of the House instead of to the SPEAKER. Ministers are the
worst offenders. One of them was asked this afternoon, for example,
whether the Judicial Adviser to the SULTAN had discouraged the use of
the English language in the Egyptian Courts, but all we could hear of
the _sotto voce_ conversation between him and his interrogator was
that "er--er--language--er--had--been--er--er--misunderstood."
Some savages, travellers tell us, are unable to count beyond five.
Some Ministers, on the other hand, show an inability to reckon except
in millions. Mr. CHURCHILL, when asked how many soldiers were not
receiving the recent increase of pay, remarked casually that the
numbers were "not so very great--half-a-million would cover them.
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