then leave the House bound to meet again on
Saturday. Therefore it prudently secures its
holiday by moving at some early stage of
Friday's business, that the House at its rising
do adjourn to Monday.

Until six years ago, a part of the foundation of
the British Constitution was the bodily constitution
of the Speaker of the House of Commons. He
was essential to the lawfulness of the assembly,
and bound to preside from the first to the last
minute over all its sittings, when not in
committee. A healthy Speaker was essential to the
nation's health. It is only four years since a
really adequate authority has been given to the
Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means
to occupy, in case of need, the Speaker's
place, without making any act of the House
invalid.

The Committee of Ways and Means just
mentioned is, together with the Committee of
Supply, a form of the House. The House in
Committee, with a chairman to preside, inquires
and deliberates. In formal sitting with the
Speaker in the chair it legislates. There is
always in the royal speech a clause demanding
annual provision for the public service,
and acquainting gentlemen of the House of
Commons that her Majesty has directed the
estimates to be laid before them. When
the speech is discussed it is upon a formal
motion, "That a supply be granted to her
Majesty." On a subsequent day the whole
House resolves itself into a Committee to
"consider of the supply." This Committee
has to discover how much money is wanted,
and for that purpose inquires into the
estimates.

After the first report of the Committee of
Supply, concerning money wanted, has been
received, a day is appointed for the House to
resolve itself into a committee to "consider of
ways and means for raising the supply." One
committee asks what money must be raised; the
other inquires how to raise it, and is helped in
its inquiry by the budget of the Chancellor of
the Exchequer. The first act of the Committee
of Supply is to elect its chairman for the
session, who presides in both committees. He
is called Chairman of the Committee of Ways
and Means, and he it is who is authorised
to vote, when necessary, as the Speaker's
deputy.

When the House is in committee, if any
formal public business should arise—for example,
if there be a summons from the Usher of the
Black Rod to attend her Majesty—Mr. Speaker
must at once resume the chair. When sudden
disorder has arisen, the Speaker has now and
then, by resuming the chair, suddenly quelled it.
In the old stormy days of the seventeenth
century, a disturbance arose in a grand committee,
threatening to end in bloodshed. Then "the
Speaker, very opportunely and prudently rising
from his seat near the bar, in a resolute and slow
pace, made his three respects through the crowd,
and took the chair." The mace, like the sounding
cane of the schoolmaster having been
forcibly laid upon the table, disorder ceased, and
the disputants went to their places.

Among the Lords, the woolsack is without the
pale of their House, and the Lord Chancellor,
who acts as their Speaker, may, as was the case
for a short time with Mr. Brougham, be a
commoner. He is no lawgiver to the Lords on points
of order; they decide such questions among
themselves. He is not formally addressed by
the Lords who speak, and he can only
himself speak or vote as a Lord by coming down
from his official seat outside the House and
taking his place as a peer within the sacred
limits.

We have introduced the reader to a very few
only of the old-fashioned customs which bear
witness to the antiquity of Parliament. It is right
to observe that there has during the last few years
been a disposition to get rid of those which
produce useless embarrassment. A conspicuous
example of such innovation is the freedom given to
the House to work under a Deputy Speaker. As
an example of the smaller reforms, we may take a
change in the way of conveying messages
between the Lords and Commons. The Lords
used to send messages to the Commons by
judges or masters in Chancery; the Commons to
the Lords by solemn deputation of eight
members. Every bill sent was to be made the
subject of a distinct deputation; but twelve years ago
the Lords agreed, by a formal resolution, to
receive bundles of bills in one message, and to
consider their dignity sufficiently respected by
a deputation of five members. The Commons, in
return, declared themselves ready to receive
messages by one master in Chancery instead of
two. For four years past the whole message
business has been done quietly among
themselves, at their own tables, by the clerks of the
respective Houses.

GREAT MEETING OF CREDITORS.

IF any man be tired of musing upon that
numerical abstraction, that perilous jungle for
currency doctors, that legacy of Heaven-born
ministers and ingenious financiers, the National
Debt, and is desirous of changing his painful
reflections upon the eight hundred millions of
sterling money sunk and gone, for a glance at
some of those people to whom this gigantic
amount is owing—the national creditors—let
him direct his steps towards the Bank of
England on any of those great Dividend-paying days
that come round periodically in the heart of
the four seasons. Let him enter on that side
of the building which is known as the
Rotunda (where the interest upon the national
debt is paid, when claimed, in four quarterly
instalments), and he will find himself in the
midst of the crowd of large and small
fundholders and annuitants, who have lent the
country that money which has been sunk by
Britannia in ruling the waves, and who are
satisfied with a small and certain return for their
capital.

A thorough stranger, looking at some of the