NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE House of Commons showed, on Thursday night, that they 1. fully appreciate the gravity of the popular agitation for the release of Arthur Orton and for the removal of the Judges who tried him. A petition to that effect, which had been signed by certain inhabitants of Prittlewell, in Essex, and presented (in ignorance of its contents) a week or two ago by Colonel .Makins, M.P. for South Essex, was then discussed,—Mr. Disraeli moving that the order for this petition lying on the table be rescinded, -mainly on the ground that in the latter portion of the peti- tion its language implied,—no doubt in a hypothetical form, but still in a very contumelious way,—that the Speaker of the House of Commons had used unconstitutional language about the admissibility of petitions, for which language, if so used, he deserved to be impeached. Mr. Disraeli's motion gave rise to a very spirited debate, in which Mr. P. A. Taylor, Mr. Hopwood, Sir Charles Dike, and others insisted on the danger of refusing to receive a petition, however violent and wrong-headed, on a matter affecting the deepest interests of the people, merely on account of its use of improper language towards the Speaker of the House of Commons ; while Mr. Herschell, Mr. Staveley Hill, and Mr. 'Whitbread spoke in favour of Mr. Disraeli's proposition, though earnestly repudiating the notion of rejecting the petition only because it brought grave and incredible charges against the Judges.
