t which
soon led to the acceptance of his writings elsewhere. Some discussion has
recently been rife in London concerning the name of the paper with which
Dickens had his first Parliamentary employment.

According to Forster, Dickens was in his twenty-third year when he became
a reporter on the _Morning Chronicle_. At this time the _Chronicle_ was
edited by John Black, who had conducted it ever since Perry's death, and
the office of the paper from June, 1834, until it died in 1862, was 332
Strand, opposite Somerset House, a building pulled down under the Strand
improvement scheme. It had then been for nearly forty years--ever since
the _Chronicle_ vacated it, in fact--the office of another newspaper, the
_Weekly Times and Echo_. It may be worth while to add that Dickens first
entered "The Gallery" at the age of nineteen, as reporter for the _True
Sun_, and that he afterward reported during two sessions for the _Mirror
of Parliament_ before he joined the staff of the _Morning Chronicle_.

The new Houses of Parliament form one of the grandest administrative piles
of any city in the world, built though, it is feared, of a stone too soon
likely to decay, and with a minuteness of Gothic ornament which is perhaps
somewhat out of keeping with a structure otherwise so massive.

The House of Peers is 97 feet long, 45 wide, and 45 high. It is so
profusely painted and gilt, and the windows are so darkened by deep-tinted
stained glass, that it is with difficulty that the details can be
observed. At the southern end is the gorgeously gilt and canopied throne;
near the centre is the woolsack, on which the lord chancellor sits; at the
end and sides are galleries for peeresses, reporters, and strangers; and
on the floor of the house are the cushioned benches for the peers. Two
frescoes by David Maclise--"The Spirit of Justice" and "The Spirit of
Chivalry"--are over the strangers' gallery, as well as a half-dozen others
by famous hands elsewhere. In niches between the windows and at the ends
are eighteen statues of barons who signed Magna Charta. The House of
Commons, 62 feet long, 45 broad, and 45 high, is much less elaborate
than the House of Peers. The Speaker's chair is at the north end, and
there are galleries along the sides and ends. In a gallery behind the
Speaker, the reporters for the newspapers sit. Over which is the ladies'
gallery, where the view is ungallantly obstructed by a grating. The
present ceiling is many feet belo