[387] "Parl. Hist." ii. 1072. Butler refers to them in "Hudibras":
"The oyster women lock'd their fish up, And trudg'd away to cry 'No Bishop!'"
[388] Noorthouck's "A New History of London," p. 180. Scenes of a similar character occurred in the reign of George III., when the Gordon rioters stormed the Houses of Parliament, shouting "No Popery!" In 1871, a mob of matchmakers marched to Westminster to protest against a tax on matches, and were dispersed by the police. In still more recent times female deputations in favour of Woman's Suffrage, accompanied by a mob of inquisitive sightseers and a section of the criminal classes, have besieged the Palace of Westminster in a vain attempt to gain admittance to the House of Commons.
[389] When during Garibaldi's visit to London, some one suggested that he should marry a wealthy widow with whom he spent much of his time it was objected that he already had a wife living. "Never mind," said a wag, "we will get Gladstone to explain her away!"
[390] Palgrave's "House of Commons," p. 41.
[391] Bagehot's "English Constitution," p. 181.
[392] "Edinburgh Review," January, 1854, p. 254.
[393] Hakewell's "Modus Tenendi Parliamentum," p. 142.
[394] Bills of the most fantastic kind are from time to time introduced, though they seldom see the light of a Second Reading. In 1597 a member, Walgrave by name, brought in a Bill to prevent the exportation of herrings to Leghorn, "which occasioneth both a very great scarcity of Herrings within the Realm and is a great means of spending much Butter and Cheese, to the great inhancing of the prices thereof by reason of the said scarcity of Herrings."—D'Ewes' "Journal," p. 562.
[395] Lord Waldegrave's "Memoirs," p. 133.