le
historic scene gives no idea of the every-day work of the House.
Moreover, if history is made on the days when excitement runs high, the
business of carrying on the government is done every day, and it is
about the latter that you wish to learn. By way of beginning, let me say
a word about the place where this work is done. The House of
Representatives holds its sessions in the southern wing of the Capitol
at Washington. The House is very large, right angled, and rigid, with
little ornament, and without beauty of proportion. The walls go up for
about fifteen feet, and from that point the galleries slant back until
they reach the next floor of the building. The roof is a vast expanse of
glass, with the arms of each State painted on the square panels. The
general effect is grayness of color and a size which can be measured in
acres better than in feet. Against the southern wall is placed a high
white marble dais or tribune, where the Speaker or presiding officer
sits. Below the Speaker's desk and in descending tiers, also of white
marble, sit the clerks of the House and the official reporters. Facing
the Speaker, and ranged in a semicircle, are 360 desks, with a
corresponding number of chairs, which are, or ought to be, occupied by
the 350 Representatives and the four Territorial delegates.

Such is the place, but it would require a volume, and a very
uninteresting one, too, to explain the machinery used in transacting the
business for which this great hall is provided. Nevertheless, it is
possible, perhaps, to give you in a general way some idea of an ordinary
day's work in the lower branch of Congress. In theory, the House ought
to take up its calendars on each day and dispose of each article in its
order. But the great beauty of the calendars is that in practice they
are never taken up at all.

How then, you will ask, is business done if the House never takes up the
list of measures prepared for its consideration? It is done by a system
of special rules. The Committee on Rules brings in a rule that the House
shall take up, let us say the tariff, on a certain day, shall debate it
a certain length of time, and shall then vote. This rule is adopted, the
bill selected is taken from the calendar, and everything else gives way
until the tariff is disposed of. Appropriation bills are privileged,
because they provide the money necessary to carry on the government, and
require no rule to be brought up. But all the other bus