The trouble in Russia just now is the tyranny of the minority.

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[Illustration:  A WORD OF ILL OMEN.

CROWN PRINCE (to KAISER, drafting his next speech).  “FOR GOTT’S SAKE, FATHER, BE CAREFUL THIS TIME, AND DON’T CALL THE AMERICAN ARMY ‘CONTEMPTIBLE.’”]

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ESSENCE OF PARLIAMENT.

Tuesday, June 5th.—­In listless and dejected mood the House of Commons reassembled after its all-too-brief recess.  Members collectively missed their MARK, for Colonel LOCKWOOD, the only popular Food Controller in history, had been summoned upstairs and left the Kitchen Committee to its fate.  The shower of Privy Councillorships, baronetcies and knighthoods which had simultaneously descended upon the faithful Commons afforded little compensation for this irreparable loss; and even the sight of the ATTORNEY-GENERAL’S immaculate spats appearing over the edge of the Table was insufficient to dispel the prevailing gloom.

Mr. PEMBERTON-BILLING made a gallant effort to galvanize his colleagues into life.  Remembering that it was an air-raid that got him into the House—­some people will never forgive the Germans for this—­he seldom allows a similar incident to pass without endeavouring to improve the occasion.  As his policy of “two bombs to one” failed to intrigue Mr. BONAR LAW he sought to move the adjournment, but when the Question was put only five Members, instead of the necessary forty, rose in its support.

If Sir H. DALZIEL has his way, and the consumer is allowed to purchase his sugar unrefined, the British breakfast will become a most exciting meal.  Lice, beetles and, on one occasion, a live lizard have been found in the bags arriving from Cuba.  Even with meat at its present price, Captain BATHURST doubts whether such additions to our dietary would be really welcome.

In the pre-historic times before August, 1914, the POSTMASTER-GENERAL was wont to give on the Vote for his department a long and discursive account of its multifarious activities, and to enliven the figures with anecdotes and even with jokes.  Mr. ILLINGWORTH knows a better way.  With deliberate monotony he reeled off his statistics to a steadily diminishing audience.  Only once did he evoke a sign of animation.  He has abolished the absurd rule that the person presenting a five-pound note at a post-office should be required to endorse it; and, in defending this momentous change, he remarked that he himself had endorsed many such notes, “but never with my own name.”  For a moment Members were startled by this cynical admission of something which seemed to their half-awakened intelligence very like a confession of forgery.  But the POSTMASTER-GENERAL soon put them to sleep again, and by nine o’clock had got his vote safely through.

[Illustration:  COLONEL LOCKWOOD’S FAREWELL TO THE KITCHEN ON HIS ELEVATION TO THE UPPER HOUSE.]