_Monday, May 10th._--But for the presence of a handful of Irish Peers
and of Sir EDWARD CLARKE (looking little older than when he pulverised
GLADSTONE'S second Home Rule scheme in 1893) you would never have
thought that this was the first day in Committee of the Bill "for
the better government of Ireland." The Ulstermen were on duty in full
force, but the bench on which the Nationalists are wont to sit was,
like their beloved country, "swarming with absentees."
[Illustration: HARLEQUIN'S OFFENSIVE.