"Well, sir, I likes Mr. Bruce, the 'Ome Sekretary, the best of hall of them. He has sich a hinfluence. When he comes down here he always takes a steak, and he is hawful pertikler habout it as how it is to be cooked. He halways likes to have one side raw and the other side burnt. Oh, I have been so worrited about Mr. Bruce and 'is steaks—the waiters always comes to me and says, 'I say, wot kind of a man is this 'ere 'Ome Sekretary, he ought to get some silk binding on to his steaks, he is so werry pertikler.' But he always drops 'em a sixpence and that makes it hup."
The door of the members' entrance to the Commons is guarded by two persons in evening dress, who are dignified enough in presence and feature to sit in the Senate of the United States. At each side is a handsomely carved, oaken box, shaped like a sentry's hut in camp, and in the sides of these boxes are placed notches or racks where all messages and letters for the members are left in the charge of the doorkeepers, as no outsiders whatever are permitted to penetrate this entrance excepting the Lords or distinguished foreigners, and the latter only by invitation of the House itself.
There are also telegraph offices in the corners of the lobby, with stained glass windows, from whence telegrams can be sent without delay to the Mediterranean, to Paris, St. Petersburg, New York, Washington, San Francisco, Madrid, Pekin, or any place in the bounds of civilization. As I turn from the contemplation of these offices, and from the benches where a number of messengers and smart-looking and handsomely-uniformed pages are in readiness to rush to the clubs in Pall Mall, to the Opera, or to the private residences of the members of the House, in obedience to the beck or nod of the "whip" of the government, (Sir Henry Brand,) in case of a division, I see before me in the doorway a magnificently attired gentleman, in black silk stockings, buckled shoes, and powdered hair and ruffles, wearing a bright sword at his hip. He looks like a picture stepped out of a frame of the period which Thackeray loved to dwell upon—when George the Third was king.
This gentleman is none other than the Sergeant-At-Arms of the House of Commons, Lord Charles James Fox Russell, a scion of the great house of Bedford, of which Earl Russell is a member. How different he looks from the sergeant-at-arms of some of our State Legislatures, or even of the National Houses of Congress. Here is no promoted bar-keeper or reformed rowdy, but a gentleman bearing one of the proudest names in England, and befitting by position and character the elevated office which he holds. It is more than easy to believe that a slung-shot or revolver could not be pulled upon this gorgeous and venerated being while in the performance of his august duties. The most malicious derringer would be silent in his awful presence, and no slung-shot, however moulded, could ever impinge that hereditary forehead.
THE GREAT COMMONER.
A story is told of a man who once penetrated even to the floor of the House itself, and sat there on the benches, being taken for some new member by his colleagues who was yet to be sworn in. But before the morning broke, the House having sat all night, the horror of his position had so paralyzed him that his jetty hair had turned white. Stay, as I have no ticket I will throw myself upon the country and abide the issue. I sent in to the Hon. John Francis Maguire, M.P., my card, with the written desire that I should be admitted to the gallery, and then I awaited the issue, whether for the Tower or the House.
While I waited, strolling about the gallery, a gentleman came out of the door of the Commons, upon whom every eye was turned, and walked in an upright, John Bull fashion towards the refreshment counter. A whisper went round the lobby, "That is John Bright," and then I knew that for the first time I stood in the presence of England's greatest Commoner, the apostle of the Manchester school and Tribune of the people. I who had seen so many caricatures of the great orator in Punch, which has always depicted him as a fat, pursy, vulgar-looking person, sans breeding, sans ceremonie, failed at the first glance to identify the noble-looking old man in evening dress, with an irreproachable white neck-tie, and a decidedly polished exterior, who halted at the refreshment bar to slowly sip a strawberry ice after the heat of the debate.
JOHN BRIGHT.