pleases, prorogue the House, and therefore his private wish, on any occasion, for an adjournment, has only to be known to be complied with. Both Houses usually, but not always, adjourn at the same times and for the same periods; but the one has no influence over the other in this or in any other respect. The King may order Parliament to adjourn to any place he pleases. It is a mistake to suppose it must always meet at Westminster.

I stated in a former part of this chapter that the Lords have nothing to do with money bills in the way of making any alteration in them, but that they must either accept or reject them as sent up to them by the House of Commons. If a bill, however, pertaining to money, be mixed up with other matters in the form of one bill, the money clauses may be expunged, and the other part of the bill be preserved. An instance occurred last Session in the case of the Church of Ireland Bill. Their Lordships having no objection to the Tithes Bill, but being, on the contrary, friendly to it, concurred in the clauses which related to it, while, on the motion of an Opposition Peer, no fewer than thirty-two clauses bearing on the appropriation of the property of the Church to other than ecclesiastical purposes, were expunged. As Ministers, however, declined to proceed with the Tithes Bill detached from the

appro

priation measure, the former of course fell to the ground.

It is not necessary that the Speaker be a Peer of the realm. On different occasions one of the Judges, not a Peer, has, when there happened to be no Lord Chancellor at the time, and the Keeper of the Great Seal has been absent,-presided on the woolsack; but in such cases he has, of course, no vote. In the Session of 1835, Sir William Pepys, Master of the Rolls, though only a member of the House of Commons, occupied the woolsack for several weeks during the absence of Lord Denman, who was then engaged in the performance of his judicial duties at the country assizes.

Strangers in the gallery, as in the House of Commons, are always ordered out when a division is about to take place; but the moment it is over, they are re-admitted. Members of the Commons never go to the stranger's gallery, but stand outside the bar, or in the open space outside the throne.

I have already stated, that the House usually sits in its judicial capacity from ten o'clock in the morning till three in the afternoon. The public are then admitted without a Peer's order. The gallery, however, is not open on such occasions: the

public stand outside the bar. The number of Peers present, during the transaction of judicial business, seldom exceeds six or seven, usually consisting of three or four of the Judges, and two or three other Peers.

The Peers have a right to call for the assistance of Counsel, when any measure which they think requires such aid is before the House. The latest instances in which they have employed Counsel, were in the case of the Stafford Election Bribery business in the Session of 1834, and in that of the Municipal Corporation Reform Bill, last Session. The Counsel on such occasions stand outside the bar, from which place they examine witnesses and address their Lordships.

When any question of very great importance is to be brought before the House, any Peer has the right of compelling the attendance of the other Peers. The method adopted in this case is, to issue a circular to each Peer, requiring his presence on the day fixed on, which is synonymous with a call of the House in the other branch of the legislature.

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CHAPTER III.

MISCELLANEOUS OBSERVATIONS.

In the foregoing chapter I have mentioned the leading rules, regulations, &c., of the House, with some of the privileges of the Peers. There are a great many other forms and observances of minor importance enjoined in the standing orders of the House, but only a part of them is attended to. It is a standing order of the House, as previously mentioned, that no part of the proceedings of the House be published, and consequently every newspaper in the kingdom is daily and weekly guilty of an infraction of that order, as are the Peers themselves in openly countenancing it. Another order not very strictly adhered to, is that which enjoins every Peer to sit in the place which he is entitled to occupy in virtue of his relative rank. One standing order never enforced is, that every Lord who enters the House after prayers shall be fined according to his rank. If he be a Baron or a Bishop, the penalty is to be one shilling; and "if any degree

above," he is to be fined two shillings. Every Lord who does not go to the House at all, and renders no admissible excuse for his absence, is to be subject to a fine of five shillings. The penalties thus exacted are ordered to be given to the poor. Were this order strictly enforced, the paucity of attendance at the time of prayers, and the emptiness of the benches sometimes for weeks in succession, would prove the source of no inconsiderable revenue to the poor. Another of the standing orders which are daily violated is, that which prohibits any Peer from entering the House of Commons without first obtaining leave from the House of which he is a member. The truth is, that the standing orders of the House are so numerous, and embrace such a variety of points, that it were matter of as much difficulty rigidly to observe them as most people, whose business is exclusively with the Excise, find it to be to keep its laws. The standing orders amount in number to no fewer than two hundred and thirteen.

Every one who has had an opportunity of observing the proceedings in both Houses, must have been struck with the decided superiority of the Upper over the Lower House in regard to the talent, order, and good taste displayed in debating on public questions.