consisted of one bottle of lemonade and a bottle
of peppermint-stick. Truly, in respect of a
bunch of lilac drooping from a blue jug with a
fractured spout, it might be said that the refection
offered to the people's anointed was laid out
à la Russe, but certainly the refection itself was
not calculated to minister to luxurious or
pampered tastes. Still, my curiosity with regard to
that old lady and her wares is yet far from
satisfied. I want to know if she is by "special
appointment" to the Honourable House; if she
considers it beneath her dignity to sell oranges
to any one under the rank of an M.P.; if the
M.P.s pay fancy prices for those wizened
apples, or negotiate on the ad valorem terms of
four a penny; I want to see her family tree,
to inspect her deed of tenure, to hear how her
ancestors got the better of Red William, and
who are the honourable and right honourable
gentlemen who buy peppermint-stick. My
present opinion being, that the white Berlin glove
is a gauntlet permanently thrown down as a
challenge to all not-anointed persons who venture
to approach the lady on her sacred and particular
flag-stone, I will make an endeavour to reach
her by means of letter, respectfully directed to
"The Honourable the Old Orange Lady,
Westminster Hall." I am not sure about the form
of address to use in approaching so exalted and
unique a personage, but I will look into the
Polite Letter-writer.

Warned off from the apple-stall, as from a
sacred shrine, I proceed up the steps, to the
left, through St. Stephen's Hall, and thence into
the lobby. I had been informed outside that
candidates for seats in the strangers' gallery
had begun to assemble in Palace Yard at
daybreak, that the first comers planted their
backs against the door of Westminster Hall,
and that when the door was opened the
accumulated crowd burst into the Hall like a
mob of gallery boys on boxing-night. There
were legends, too, of persons who had sat from
eight o'clock in the morning on the cold stone
bench of St. Stephen's Hall, and of others who
had paid handsome sums to deputies to keep
their places for them. But this "great excitement"
had subsided now. The strangers'
gallery had long been filled, and there were only
five persons left on the waiting-bench, one being
a commissionnaire, doubtless a deputy.

I pass across the lobby, taking care not to
get in the way of the anointed, mention my
name to a porter at a little door to the right of
the members' entrance, and am bidden to walk
up and see the live lions. Lightly up a few
stone steps, and I am in the presence of the
Commons of England in parliament assembled.

I have been accustomed to hear that the
House on this great annual occasion presents
an "imposing spectacle." It did not strike me
so. The House itself by daylight is not handsome.
It is dingy and gloomy, and not a little
suggestive of a large parlour in an old-fashioned
tavern. A thought comes across me of a judge
and jury night, and every moment I expect the
Speaker to call for a glass of brandy-and-water
and a cigar. And now as the Speaker rises to
read the order of the day, his appearance and
voice call up a vision of Mr. C. J. Smith, as the
Lord Chief Justice, trying Janet Pride at the
Adelphi. When he leaves the chair and takes
his seat on the ministerial bench, in a careless
unofficial attitude, he is Mr. C. J. Smith waiting at
the wing, with that odd incongruity of appearance
which a dignitary always presents when he
withdraws himself from the imposing surroundings
of his high office to mingle in the meaner
scenes of life. While he sat in the chair under the
royal arms the Speaker wore an air of conscious
dignity; but the moment he left the chair to
sit on an ordinary bench it appeared that he
felt himself to be a bit of a guy. In the half-
hour of waiting for the entrance of the great
performer of the evening, I have an opportunity
of looking about me, and making notes of the
appearance of the House and its occupants.
The benches on both sides of the chair were
crowded. Honourable and right honourable
gentlemen seemed to be absolutely sitting on
each other, so closely were they packed. It
was the parliamentary boxing-night. Oddly
enough, the only persons who had plenty of leg
and elbow room were the strangers and the
reporters, who were there on sufferance. The
ladies high up in the cage over the reporters
were in a worse case than the members. In
their expansive skirts and inflated finery they
overlapped each other like sardines in a tin, or
shall I say sweet muscatels in a box? Looking
down upon the members massed on either side
of the table, graced by the bauble which the
brewer of Huntingdon ordered to be taken
away, but which does not appear to be at all
offensive in the eyes of Mr. Bass of Burton-on-
Trent, I am invited to a certain speculation:
If it were not known to me that the Whigs sit
on the right of the Speaker, and the Tories on
the left, should I be able to tell from the
personal appearance of the members which were
Whigs, and which were Tories? There was
certainly a difference in the aspect of the parties,
but I am not sure that their distinctive
characteristics would have guided me to a definite
conclusion as to their politics. There were as
many blue coats and high collared yellow waistcoats
on the Whig as on the Tory side. And
the swells who wore pointed moustachios, and
parted their hair down the middle, were pretty
evenly balanced. It struck me, however, that
on the whole the Tories were better dressed.
The trousers on the ministerial bench had a
decided sixteen shilling look. There was a
want of cut about them. The Tory trousers,
on the other hand, while exhibiting more style,
were generally of a lighter and more dandy
colour. The Tories, too, had the best of
it in boots. There was an unpleasant high-low
aspect about the Whig boots, suggestive of
radicalism, and a wide extension of the franchise
among the clodhoppers; whereas, the natty
patent leathers of the Tories indicated a desire
to preserve the British constitution in an
exclusive state of elegance.