Sir Hussey Vivian was relating to Sir Robert Peel the failure of the Duke
of Normandie's experiment with a terrible self-explosive box, which he had
buried in a mound at Woolwich, in the expectation that it would shortly
blow up, but which still remains there, to the great terror of the
neighbourhood, who are afraid to approach the spot where this destructive
engine is interred. Sir Robert, on hearing the circumstance, declared that
Lord John Russell had served him the same trick, by burying the corn-law
question under the Treasury bench. No one knew at what moment it might
explode, and blow them to ----. "The question," he added, "now is--who will
dig it out?"
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