arely, if ever, present at the debates.
As has been already stated, the whole number of peers is about four
hundred and sixty, of whom less than twenty-five are minors, while the
average attendance is less than fifty. The right to vote by proxy is a
peculiar and exclusive privilege of the Upper House, and vicarious
voting to a great extent is common on all important issues. Macaulay,
many years ago, pronounced the House of Lords "a small and torpid
audience"; and certainly, since the expression of this opinion, there
has been no increase of average attendance. A considerable proportion of
the absentees will be found among the "fast noblemen" of the
kingdom,--the men who prostitute their exalted social position to the
basest purposes, squandering their substance and wasting their time in
degrading dissipation, the easy prey of accomplished sharpers, and a
burning disgrace to their order. Sometimes, indeed, they pause on the
brink of utter ruin, only to become in their turn apostles of iniquity,
and to lure others to a like destruction. The unblushing and successful
audacity of these titled _roues_ is beginning to attract the attention
and awaken the fears of the better part of the English people. Their
pernicious example is bearing most abundant and bitter fruit in the
depraved morals of what are called the "lower classes" of society, and
their misdeeds are repeated in less fashionable quarters, with less
brilliant surroundings. Against this swelling tide of corrupting
influence the press of England is now raising its warning voice, and the
statements which are publicly and unreservedly made, and the predictions
which are confidently given, are very far from being welcome to English
eyes or grateful to English ears.

Another class of the House of Lords, and it is a large one, is most
happily characterized by Sydney Smith in his review of "Granby." "Lord
Chesterton we have often met with, and suffered a good deal from his
lordship: a heavy, pompous, meddling peer, occupying a great share of
the conversation, saying things in ten words which required only two,
and evidently convinced that he is making a great impression; a large
man, with a large head, and a very landed manner; knowing enough to
torment his fellow-creatures, not to instruct them; the ridicule of
young ladies, and the natural butt and target of wit. It is easy to talk
of carnivorous animals and beasts of prey; but does such a man, who lays
waste a whole civ