lorifying
him.

Finally he got away, and went home and ate five loaves and twelve
baskets of fish, read the morning papers, slept three hours, took a
short drive, then returned to the House, and sat out the rest of the
thirty-three-hour session.

To merely stand up in one spot twelve hours on a stretch is a feat
which very few men could achieve; to add to the task the utterance of a
hundred thousand words would be beyond the possibilities of the most of
those few; to superimpose the requirement that the words should be put
into the form of a compact, coherent, and symmetrical oration would
probably rule out the rest of the few, bar Dr. Lecher.

III.--CURIOUS PARLIAMENTARY ETIQUETTE.

In consequence of Dr. Lecher's twelve-hour speech and the other
obstructions furnished by the Minority, the famous thirty-three-hour
sitting of the House accomplished nothing. The Government side had made
a supreme effort, assisting itself with all the helps at hand, both
lawful and unlawful, yet had failed to get the Ausgleich into the hands
of a committee. This was a severe defeat. The Right was mortified, the
Left jubilant.

Parliament was adjourned for a week--to let the members cool off,
perhaps--a sacrifice of precious time; for but two months remained in
which to carry the all-important Ausgleich to a consummation.

If I have reported the behaviour of the House intelligibly, the reader
has been surprised by it, and has wondered whence these law-makers come
and what they are made of; and he has probably supposed that the conduct
exhibited at the Long Sitting was far out of the common, and due to
special excitement and irritation. As to the make-up of the House, it
is this: the deputies come from all the walks of life and from all the
grades of society. There are princes, counts, barons, priests,
peasants, mechanics, labourers, lawyers, judges, physicians, professors,
merchants, bankers, shopkeepers. They are religious men, they are
earnest, sincere, devoted, and they hate the Jews. The title of Doctor
is so common in the House that one may almost say that the deputy who
does not bear it is by that reason conspicuous. I am assured that it is
not a self-granted title, and not an honorary one, but an earned one;
that in Austria it is very seldom conferred as a mere compliment; that
in Austria the degrees of Doctor of Music, Doctor of Philosophy, and so
on, are not conferred by the seats of learning; and so, when an Austrian
is