He would not take the trouble to or be guilty of the absurdity of expending his lofty rhetoric upon the version of a debate or speech which had not really attracted attention by that quality, but I suppose he reserved his strength for occasions on which those who had heard, or heard of, the original oration, would look for something more brilliant than usual. It was not, however, until after a long and severe struggle, with a desperate fight at the close, that the right of reporting the debates of Parliament was gained by the English press of that day. It is only about one hundred and thirty years ago, (in the old days of the Hanoverian and Pretender's troubles), since anything spoken in the House was allowed to be printed until after the session was dissolved. The House, in its wisdom, denounced any earlier publication of the eloquence of the honorable members as a daring act of illegality.
On the 13th of April, 1738, the House resolved "that it is an high indignity to, and a notorious breach of the privilege of this House, for any news matter or letters, or other papers, as minutes, or under any other denomination, or for any printer or publisher of any printed newspaper of any denomination to presume to insert in the said letters or papers, or to give therein any account of, the debates or other proceedings of this House, or any committee thereof, as well during the recess as the sitting of Parliament, and that this House will proceed with the utmost severity against such offenders." The House of Commons, it is needless to say, has progressed somewhat since that day.
The monthly magazines, notwithstanding the resolution of the House, still continued to print the debates, although for some time they took the necessary precaution of indicating the speakers by fictitious names, to which they furnished their readers with a key when the House became dissolved. But it was not until the year 1771, nearly a century ago, that the debates began to be given to the public day by day as they occurred, and then the attempt gave rise to a contest between the House and the newspapers, which occupied the House, to the exclusion of all other business, for three weeks, when a committee was appointed, whose report, when it was read two months after, suggested whether it might not be expedient to order that the offending parties should be taken into the custody of the Sergeant-at-Arms. Edmund Burke compared the decision, in his own brilliant manner, to the resolution of the bewildered convocation of mice,—that the cat, to prevent her doing future destruction, should have a bell hung to her neck, but forgot to say how the rash act was to be performed. Well, that is all past and gone now, and the only complaint made in these busy days by members of Parliament against the score of daily newspapers, published in London, is that they err in not printing enough of the speeches to satisfy each individual representative.
THE CLERK OF THE HOUSE.
I noticed that the majority of the parliamentary reporters in the Gallery were considerably advanced in age, many of them wearing gray hairs, and fully sixty per cent. of the whole number that I saw were above forty years of age. Some of these gentlemen, by careful saving and strict attention to their arduous professional duties, have amassed comfortable competencies, and some of them own, in the environs of the city, snug little houses, with snug little libraries, and in some of them, I can certainly say, are to be found pleasant tables and home-comforts rarely possessed by their brethren of the note-book and pencil in America. There are, to be sure, many improvident ones in London, as elsewhere, and here Bohemianism has a lower depth than it ever was known to have in America, for it is here that the really depraved and abandoned Bohemian confines himself exclusively to the consumption of gin—raw and simple gin. A low London Bohemian is a mere animal, and will beg a copper from you in the same breath that he professes his willingness to translate a Greek tragedy—to oblige the giver of the copper, or else he will favor you with an account of his days at Oxford or Trinity, when he was a "first honor" man or a B.A. But one thing I have not found as yet in London on the press, and that is an illiterate or badly taught man, such as can be met with by the score on the American press.
The House to-night is in a Committee of the Whole on the Scottish Education bill. The Ministerial benches are pretty well filled, while the Opposition benches, to the left of the Speaker's chair, are but thinly populated. Fronting the Speaker's chair of state is a table of polished mahogany, the surface of which is about ten feet wide by fifteen feet long. Directly before the chair of the Right Honorable Speaker are two low-seated chairs of less pretension, occupied by the Clerk of the House of Commons, Sir Denis Le Marchant, and his assistant, Sir Thomas Erskine May, K.C.B. The former is a smooth-faced man, having the inevitable wig upon his head, which gives him a much older appearance than his years would warrant. His shoulders are enveloped in an ample black silk gown, and a blank book of large dimensions is open before him upon whose leaves he is supposed to enter the minutes of the House. This person has a magnificent suite of apartments in a wing of the Parliament House, beside a very large salary, and is as comfortably housed as if he belonged to the royal blood of Britain. Sir Thomas Erskine May, K.C.B., seated upon his left, is a clean-shaved gentleman in evening dress, who also has apartments in the palace, and a good salary. He has nothing remarkable about his person or manner, with the exception of a very drawling voice and a hesitancy in announcing motions made by the members, or in calling a division when the House so wills it. He is the author of the continuation of Hallam's Constitutional History of England. Beside these high officials there are four "Principal Clerks," one of whom, like Sir Thomas May, enjoys the high dignity of a Knight Companion of the Bath, &c. Then there are twelve "Assistant Clerks" and twelve "Junior Clerks," with an "Accountant," an "Assistant Accountant," a "Private Secretary to the Chairman of Ways and Means;" a "Sergeant-at-Arms," who is a Lord; two "Deputy Sergeants;" a "Chaplain," no less a man than Canon Merivale, the accomplished Roman historian, who has the good sense to make his prayers at the commencement of the proceedings very short; a "Secretary to the Speaker;" a "Librarian," a poor cadet of the great overshadowing family of Howard; an "Assistant Librarian," with an Irish name; two "Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills," one of whom is Mr. R.D.F. Palgrave, of whom Americans have heard, and finally a "Taxing Officer," beside innumerable servants, of superfine bearing, correct evening dress, and consummate self-possession. I asked one of these ponderous servants, whom at first sight I took to be the "Juke of Linsther," as an Irish reporter pronounced it, if he was not awed by the dignity of the house.
COULD YOU MAKE IT A TANNER?
"Aw," said he, in a gracious manner, "you er, I preeszhume, en Eemireken. This sawt of thing boaws me 'orrid; it does. I hev dun hit for heit yeers. I wish they wud adjoan, and I wud go to my CLUB."