MR.

M'BUFFER ACCEPTS THE CHILTERN HUNDREDS It was an anxious hour for the Honourable Undecimus Scott when he first learnt that Mr.M'Buffer had accepted the Stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds.

The Stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds! Does it never occur to anyone how many persons are appointed to that valuable situation?
Or does anyone ever reflect why a Member of Parliament, when he wishes to resign his post of honour, should not be simply gazetted in the newspapers as having done so, instead of being named as the new Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds?
No one ever does think of it; resigning and becoming a steward are one and the same thing, with this difference, however, that one of the grand bulwarks of the British constitution is thus preserved.
Well, Mr.M'Buffer, who, having been elected by the independent electors of the Tillietudlem burghs to serve them in Parliament, could not, in accordance with the laws of the constitution, have got himself out of that honourable but difficult position by any scheme of his own, found himself on a sudden a free man, the Queen having selected him to be her steward for the district in question.

We have no doubt but that the deed of appointment set forth that her Majesty had been moved to this step by the firm trust she had in the skill and fidelity of the said Mr.M'Buffer; but if so her Majesty's trust would seem to have been somewhat misplaced, as Mr.M'Buffer, having been a managing director of a bankrupt swindle, from which he had contrived to pillage some thirty or forty thousand pounds, was now unable to show his face at Tillietudlem, or in the House of Commons; and in thus retreating from his membership had no object but to save himself from the expulsion which he feared.

It was, however, a consolation for him to think that in what he had done the bulwarks of the British constitution had been preserved.
It was an anxious moment for Undy.