3-052-771 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Parliamentary Sketches: in the Lobby - "Hot Water", 1880. 'Enter two prominent members of a class which used to be conspicuous by its absence from the House - Mr. Frank Hugh O'Donnell and Mr. Joseph Gillis Biggar. The tall, slim member whose long fair moustache suggests that he may be an officer - of the Militia - and whose white hat periodically reappears with the advent of what passes for summer in this country, was returned for Dungarvan; but there is good authority for supposing that Mr. O'Donnell, like Mr. Biggar, principally represents - himself. When either rises in the House, "hot water" may be looked for at any moment; and there was a plentiful supply of it in all conscience on Monday...certain it is that a section of the Irish Home-Rule Party has apparently delighted in throwing the House into "hot water" for the past few Sessions. Their imperturbable self-sufficiency and exhaustless verbosity have wasted innumerable hours, triumphing over the forms of the House, and sorely taxing the patience of Ministerial and Opposition leaders. How can they be extinguished? Severity and serious rebuke having proved fruitless, may not the weapons of banter and sarcasm...be used with effect?' From "Illustrated London News", 1880.