A GLIMPSE FROM THE REFORMERS' GALLERY.

Observer, Volume 6, Issue 151, 4 August 1883, Page 3

A GLIMPSE FROM THE REFORMERS' GALLERY.

Icbabod ! The old familiar faces have disappeared from the Reporters' Gallery of the House of Representatives. They have lied from the noxious smells, and the. still more noxious gas of the demagogues, who have degraded the Chamber to the, level of a third-class debating club. Crombie Brown, the beloved of Brvce, is editing a newspaper somewhere in the classic region of Tasmania, having found a confiding grocer to back him with capital ; Ings, the Jidus achates of pompous Chantrey Harris, has also gone across the water ; Williamson, formerly of Otago, who had such an unquenchable thirst for liquid gum arabic, is in Melbourne ; while Downey, the debonair, who borrowed half-crowns with the easy grace of a Micawber or Wyndham Flitter, is in Sydney with the smiling John Perrier, the irrepressible Jack TJtting, and the eccentric Vialeaux, Only E. T. Gillon, beloved of Sir William Fox, Carrick, the amorous, and Sherrin, the philosophic, linger there like remnants of the glorious past ; while men like Whitely King, of that influential and wide - world organ, the 3£ataura Ensign, look down from their lofty height upon new facea, and men who belong to a new generation of politicians. The old times have passed away. ' Tempus mutautur, et nos mutanmr in illis? The House has degenerated into a huge Road Board. It threshes the air over such trifles as to whether two and two make four, while great questions of public policy have gone out of sight. You hear »o more the silvertongued eloquence of a Fitagemld, frho calm dispassionate statesman-like speech of a Stafford, the keen incisive thrusts of a Togel, or the fiery declamation of a Fox. It is all Dryasdust squabbling over roads and bridges and public expenditure, petty personalities devoid of any redeeming wit; stale platitudes, crude political economy ; fustian, dumb -show, and selfishness. The highest type of a statesman is he who can squeeze out the most money for his district j the highest type of an orator, a man with lungs of brass, who can talk nonsense against time by the hour. The Spartans of political welfare have given place to the Helots.