The Drain on Gladstone's Vitality.

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 99, 25 April 1885, Page 5

The Drain on Gladstone's Vitality.

Mr Gladstone's manner in last night's debate was that of a very tired man, not to say a very feeble one. He pat opposite the Speaker's mace, with his hands folded in his lap and his legs crossed. His body sank down in the cushions of the Treasury bench as far as it wag possible, and it seemed as though he were trying to get a little of the rest he stands so much in need of. The animation that characterised him two months ago was entirely wanting, and his expression was almost piteous. He listened first to an arraignment of his administration from the Conservatives, and next from men of his own party. In the lobbies the feeling was that Mr Gladstone's reign could be but for a few weeks longer, whatever might be the result of the division. Mr Gladstone has been practically an invalid since the close of the last session, and now, when he ought to be under treatment as a convalescent, he is called to the severest work that can fall to man's lot. His day is absorbed with the Cabinet councils and preparing for Parliamentary debate, and his nights are devoted to defending, in the face of opposition, the measures he has been maturing through the day. Is it strange that he cannot sleep when at last he gets home to see his bed, and is it likely that a man whose vitality has been completely drained by a night of exciting debate will be possessed next morning with the requisite resolution and energy to carry into the Administration the line he mapped out the night previous ? The present way in which Mr Gladstone has been borrowing for to day the strength of tomorrow oxplains the wreck of his Parliamentary hopes as well as of his health.— London Despatch to "Now York Herald," March 3.