"Mr.Halifax, I have just had news by a carrier pigeon--my birds fly well--most important news for us and our party.

Yesterday, in the lobby of the House of Commons, Mr.Perceval was shot." We all started.

An hour ago we had been reading his speech.

Mr.
Perceval shot! "Oh, John," cried the mother, her eyes full of tears; "his poor wife--his fatherless children!" And for many minutes they stood, hearing the lamentable history, and looking at their little ones at play in the garden; thinking, as many an English father and mother did that day, of the stately house in London, where the widow and orphans bewailed their dead.

He might or might not be a great statesman, but he was undoubtedly a good man; many still remember the shock of his untimely death, and how, whether or not they liked him living, all the honest hearts of England mourned for Mr.
Perceval.
Possibly that number did not include the Earl of Luxmore.
"Requiescat in pace! I shall propose the canonization of poor Bellingham.