up the Speaker reminds
him of the fact by rapping the table with his hammer.

[Illustration: AN EX-MINISTER.]

Again, it is very convenient that a Member can have speeches that he has
never delivered printed on the Parliamentary record. In England a
country Member is about to make a speech, and being anxious to let his
constituents have it in full he gives it to the representatives of his
local paper, and it is in the press before he delivers it. Something may
happen to prevent the delivery of the speech, and Hansard has not a line
of it. A curious thing happened in the "Congressional Record" a year or
two ago. The same speech was published as having been uttered by two
very different Members. This occurred through a New York orator handing
his speech (a eulogium on a deceased Member) to a friend to correct.
This friend had an eye to business, and he picked out another Member who
yearned to be thought an orator but who was not blessed with forensic
power and had never made a speech in his life, and sold him the speech
for forty dollars. He walked into the House swelling in anticipation of
his coming effort, but his chagrin was great when he discovered
precisely the same speech in the "Record." How is this for an instance
of American journalistic smartness?

After the exhibition of filibustering I described the House adjourned,
having done absolutely nothing but convince the stranger in the gallery
that payment of Members leads to a waste of time, which is not played
ducks and drakes with by the Members of our House.

An evening sitting is, of course, livelier, though at the outset there
are more strangers in the gallery than Members on the floor. It is
amusing to note how the ladies crowd the seats, and how the Congressman
lolls on the sofa in the outer circle of the chamber, or turns round in
his chair at his desk, crossing his legs on the desk in front of him,
puffs his cigar, and, heedless of the fate of the nation, turns round
and fascinates the fair ones in the gallery. It is amusing also to see a
Member leave his seat during his speech and walk all over the floor,
snapping his fingers and pummelling any desk handy. The official
reporter follows him about, book in hand, wherever the Member's
eloquence leads him, and his friends crowd around him when he stands or
walks and vigorously applaud him; so do the audience in the gallery when
his eloquence ceases, while his friends rush to shake his hand. He then
walks