on labor and factory legislation were at the general election of 1874 made test questions all over the north of England.
In 1878 he succeeded in carrying a useful bill for the preservation of fresh-water fisheries, so as to increase the supply of food and give harmless sport to the poorer class of anglers. In the subsequent session his bill to abolish property qualifications in connection with all local government and municipal bodies was lost by only six votes.
To some, such legislative achievements may appear small and commonplace; but it should be recollected that in legislation, as in other matters, it is "the mean and common, the things of the eternal yesterday," that it is most desirable and least agreeable to tackle. I have said that Mr. Mundella is a Democrat rather than a Radical, and I shall finally give an illustration of what I mean. On the vote to pay the cost of the Prince of Wales' mischievous jaunt to India, he sided with the majority in favor of the royal subsidy, and he had the temerity to assign his reasons for so doing: "As long as we had a monarchy, we should be ashamed to have a cotton-velvet or tinfoil sort of monarchy. He did not believe in a cheap, shabby, brummagem monarchy; and he always would give his vote loyally and in consistency with those opinions, which he believed to be the opinions of his constituents."
Now, it is impossible to say whether the Radicalism or the logic of this sentence is the worse; yet, I suppose, it must be admitted that such clap-trap is regarded by the demos of Sheffield—to use the language of our late democratic-imperialist Premier—as "the voice
