The Quaint Side of Parliament. pleases. But the hat must be his own work aday headgear. If it is discovered that he has brought with him a second hat and leaves the precincts of the House wearing that hat, he forfeits all right to the seat. These two regulations have recently been the subject of definite and specific rulings by the Speaker. After the split in the Irish party in 1891, and when the personal rela tions between the rival sections were very strained, one Irish member took possession of a seat on which another Irish member had placed his hat in the usual way before prayers. On the member aggrieved bringing the matter publicly under the notice of the House, the Speaker declared that he had an unquestionable right and title to the seat, and that the action of the other member in thus taking possession of the seat was a vio lation of the etiquette of the House. Again, a large crowd of members gathered at West minster in the early morning of the evening on which Mr. Gladstone introduced the Home Rule Bill of 1892, and when, after hours of waiting, the door giving immediate entrance to the chamber was opened at seven A. M., so mad was the rush to secure seats that several members were crushed, knocked down and trampled upon. Subse quently the Speaker was informed that an Irish member had brought with him a dozen soft hats to Westminster that morning, and with them secured twelve seats for col leagues who did not go down to the House till the ordinary hour of meeting in the after noon, and the Speaker, repeating a rule made in 1880, laid it down that the only hat which can secure a seat is the real bona fide headgear of the member, and not any " col orable substitute" for it. However, during the influenza epidemic of 1893 the Speaker, in mercy for the hatless wanderers in lob bies, departed from the old usage so far as to recognize a card left on the bench as suf ficing in place of the hat as a sentinel of a seat to be occupied later on. Curiously enough the innovation, which received fur
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ther sanction on the opening day of the present Parliament, is, in a fashion, a rever sion to an ancient practice. On the 2 ist of February, 1766, according to the Annual Register for that year, " by eight o'clock the seats in the House of Commons were begun to be taken for the members by pinning down a ticket with their names in such seats as they chose, which were reserved for them till prayers began." The reason for the un usual rush for seats on that occasion (four hundred and twenty-two members were pres ent in the House) was the introduction of the bill for the repeal of the famous Stamp Act of 1765, which, imposing certain obnox ious stamp duties on the American colony, had met with the most strenuous resistance from the people of that country. The hat, indeed, plays an important part in Parliamentary customs. It also contrib utes occasionally to the gayety of life in the. House of Commons. No incident is greeted with more hearty laughter than that of a member, after a magnificent peroration, plumping down on his silk hat on the bench behind him. The bashful and awkward mem ber generally figures in these accidents. Most members have sufficient self-possession, while speaking, to remember to remove their hats from their seats before sitting down; but the misfortune of forgetfulness has befallen even old and cool Parliamentary hands, and the result — a misshapen hat — has completely spoiled the effect of some of their most elo quent speeches. A few years ago a London member sat down, after his maiden speech, on a new silk hat which he had provided in honor of the auspicious occasion, and as he was ruefully surveying his battered headgear, to the amusement of the unfeeling spectators, an Irish representative rose and gravely said : "Mr. Speaker, permit me to congratulate the honorable member on the happy circum stance that when he sat on his hat his head was not in it." The call of " Order! Order!" from the Speaker was drowned in roars of laughter. This London representative en
