attitude seek places below the gangway. "The accident
that the House of Commons sits in a narrow room with benches facing
each other, and not, like most continental legislatures, in a (p. 120)
semi-circular space, with seats arranged like those of a theatre,
makes for the two-party system and against groups shading into each
other."[170]

[Footnote 169: Lowell, Government of England, I.,
249. Visitors, technically "strangers," are present
only on sufferance and may be excluded at any time;
but the ladies' gallery is not supposed to be
within the chamber, so that an order of exclusion
does not reach the occupants of it. In the autumn
of 1908, however, the disorderly conduct of persons
in the ladies' and strangers' galleries caused the
Speaker to close these galleries during the
remainder of the session. In 1738 the House
declared the publication of its proceedings "a high
indignity and a notorious breach of privilege,"
and, technically, such publication is still
illegal. In 1771, however, the reporters' gallery
was fitted up, and through a century and a quarter
the proceedings have been reported and printed as a
matter of course. On the status of the public and
the press in the chamber see Ilbert, Parliament,
Chap. 8; Redlich, Procedure of the House of
Commons; II., 28-38; MacDonaugh, The Book of
Parliament, 310-329, 350-365; and H. Graham, The
Mother of Parliaments, 259-287.]

[Footnote 170: Ilbert, Parliament, 124. The chamber
is described fully in Wright and Smith, Parliament,
Past and Present, Chap. 19.]

The hall occupied by the Lords is smaller and more elaborately
decorated than that occupied by the Commons. It contains cross
benches, but in the main the arrangements that have been described are
duplicated in it. For social and ceremonial purposes there exists
among the members a fixed order of precedence.[171] In the chamber,
however, the seating is arranged without regard to this order, save
that the bishops sit in a group. The Government