“Well, yes, I do,” quoth I.
Old Hammond settled himself in his chair with a look of enjoyment which rather alarmed me, and made me dread a scientific disquisition: so I sighed and abided. He said:
“I suppose you know pretty well what the process of government was in the bad old times?”
“I am supposed to know,” said I.
(Hammond) What was the government of those days? Was it really the Parliament or any part of it?
(I) No.
(H.) Was not the Parliament on the one side a kind of watch-committee sitting to see that the interests of the Upper Classes took no hurt; and on the other side a sort of blind to delude the people into supposing that they had some share in the management of their own affairs?
(I) History seems to show us this.
(H.) To what extent did the people manage their own affairs?
(I) I judge from what I have heard that sometimes they forced the Parliament to make a law to legalise some alteration which had already taken place.