[MR. CHARLES STEWART PARNELL is the son of the late Mr. Henry Parnell, J.P., of Avondale, County Wicklow. He was born in 1846, and educated at Magdelene College, Cambridge. Has sat for Meath since April 1875.] MR. PARNELL. THE Obstructives have made a name for themselves in the history of our Eng lish House of Commons, nearly as formidable as that which 'the Mountain' gained in other days and another legislative assembly. They are the horror of all good Conservative Members, and the special objects of Ministerial detestation. The writers of Parliamentary sketches in the Reporters' Gallery, who are too often gentlemen of limited ideas and small historical knowledge, but vehement political prejudices, have no words too hard to fling at them. Even respectable Liberals regard them with distrust and dislike; and it is only among a group of hardened Radicals that there is any kind of sympathy shown towards these Irish irreconcileables. The outside world, which takes its ideas of Parliamentary parties from the newspapers and from club gossip, has a vague notion that the Obstructive is a new species of gorilla, or a Parliamentary Yahoo, who would be as willing to 'scuttle ship or cut a throat' as to move to report progress when the House is in Committee. In short, Mr. Parnell and his friends are generally regarded as political pariahs, who only escape destruction in a whirlwind of Conservative wrath because of their utter insignificance. 'What right have such men to be in Parliament at all?' is the question universally asked; and there is a general agreement that they are a disgrace to any legislative body in Europe, and above all, to that body which once claimed to be the most gentlemanly assemblage in the world. It must be something of a shock to the stranger who enters the House of Commons imbued with these ideas, to find that these redoubtable Obstructives, in outward manner and appearance, do not differ very greatly from their most respectable colleagues on the Conservative benches. They are not armed either with the national shillelagh or the transatlantic revolver; they do not wear their hats akimbo, like some worthy gentlemen on the Ministerial side of the House; and if you have occasion to speak to them, you need not tremble for your safety. There is not one among them who will not give you a very civil answer to any legitimate inquiry you may address to him. The stranger, therefore, need not feel nervous if fortune should bring him into close prox |