"I beg the honorable gentleman's pardon, I am not learned." A member on his feet must, as I have said, address " Mr. Speaker." But, occasionally, one may hear some amusing slips of 'the tongue in the course of a debate. Members who have had a civic training in public life begin by apostrophizing " Mr. Mayor," and others who are largely in demand at public meetings by " Mr. Chairman, ladies and gen tlemen." A good story went round the press recently, that an Irish member who had been called to order by the Speaker saluted that august personage as " Your Reverence." But it was an amusing case of mishearing on the part of the journalist in the press gallery. The member in question wrote to the news papers that what he actually said was, "With all due deference to your ruling, Mr. Speaker." As the Speaker and not the House gener ally is addressed, it is considered a breach of propriety for any one to pass between the chair and the member " in possession of the House." This violation of order is common for some time after the election of a new Parliament; but it is always punished with a loud and angry cry of " Order! Order!" — the cry that is most frequently heard in the House — which is very disconcerting to the blundering member against whom it is di rected. A member, therefore, has often to get to his seat by a long, circuitous route. But if it be impossible to do this without crossing the line between the chair and the member addressing Mr. Speaker, he must wait until the speech is concluded, or if he cannot wait — if the getting to his place at once be imperative — he has to offer humble atonement for his act of impropriety by sac rificing his own native dignity of demeanor. He must cautiously and respectfully approach the sacred line, and then get over it quickly with a light step and a duck of the head or with his back lowly bent. He is fortunate if the cry of " Order! Order! " inspired by the
breach of etiquette, is not accompanied by ironical laughter at his grotesque antics. It is a breach of order for a member to read a newspaper in the House. He may quote an extract from one in the course of a speech, but if he attempted to peruse it as he sat in his place his ears would soon be assailed by a stern and reproving cry of " Order! Order!" from the chair. Some members resort to the deception practised by the young lady who had " Vanity Fair " bound like a New Testament, and was observed reading it dur ing service in St. Paul's Cathedral. Mem bers often slip a newspaper or periodical into the " Orders of the Day," and read it while the Speaker imagines they are industriously studying the clause of a bill or its amend ments. The House of Lords is less strict, oddly enough, in little matters of this kind than the House of Commons. The peers allow the attendants to pass up and down their chamber delivering messages, and they have a reporter — the representative of the Parlia mentary debates —sitting with the clerks at the table. But iri the House of Commons the clerks at the table, and the sergeant-atarms and his deputy, are the only officers of the House who are allowed within the technical limits or boundaries of the legisla tive chamber, or, in other words, across the Bar, while the House is sitting. An attend ant, even when he has letters and telegrams to deliver, dare not pass beyond the line of the Bar. He gives the messages to some member sitting near the Bar, and they are passed on from hand to hand till they reach the members to whom they are addressed. Every member is under a constitutional obligation to attend the service of the House. The attendance, however, is not now com pulsory. The House, probably, considers the force of public opinion in the constit uencies sufficient to correct any laxity on the part of any members in the discharge of their Parliamentary duties. But there is an old
