PARLIAMENTARY DRESS AND DEPORTMENT
Parliament to-day differs in very many respects from the Parliaments
of the past; nowhere does that difference express itself more forcibly
than in the remarkable improvement in parliamentary manners of which
the last century has been the witness.
Sir John Eliot's well-known words are far more applicable to the
modern House of Commons than they can ever have been three hundred
years ago. "Noe wher more gravitie can be found than is represented in
that senate," he said, speaking of the Chamber of which he was so
distinguished a member. "Noe court has more civilitie in itself, nor a
face of more dignitie towards strangers. Noe wher more equall justice
can be found: nor yet, perhaps, more wisdom."[283] It was no doubt a
pardonable sense of pride that caused Sir John to take so optimistic a
view of the assembly of his day, for there is ample evidence to show
that the House of Commons of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
was not always the grave or civil chamber which he describes. Its
passions were not invariably under control; they flared up into a
blaze on more than one occasion. The appearance of Cardinal Wolsey to
demand a subsidy for his royal master was the signal for an outburst
of feeling which almost ended in bloodshed; the Long Parliament was in
a perpetual state of storm and disorder.
[283] Forster's "Sir John Eliot," vol. i. p. 238.
During the Stuart period, and even more so towards the close of the
Commonwealth, the conduct of the Commons was anything but decorous.
The Speaker of those days frequently found it impossible to maintain
order; the Chair was held in little respect. The behaviour of the
House was but little better than that of the Irish Parliament in the
time of Elizabeth, which spent most of its time in futile argument and
disagreement: "The more words, the more choler; and the more speeches,
the greater broils."[284] It was at the commencement of the
seventeenth century that the first violent manifestations of party
feeling took place which were afterwards destined to cause so many
"scenes" in the Commons. Owing to the constant discord prevalent
there, that House was, by one member, likened to a cockpit; another
wrote to Sir Dudley Carleton that "many sat there who were more fit to
be among roaring boys"; and a third declared his desire to escape, not
only to the Upper House, but to the upper world altogether.
[284] Mountmorris's "History of the Irish Parliament," vol. i. p. 77.
During the lengthy debates on the publication of the Grand
Remonstrance in 1641, feeling ran so high that members would have
sheathed their swords in one another's vitals but for the timely
intervention of Hampden. Even those who did not actively assault each
other seem to have expressed so much malice in their looks as to cause
serious alarm to their opponents. In 1642, for instance, Sir H.
Mildmay complained to the House that the member for Coventry "looked
very fiercely upon him when he spoke, and that it was done in an
unparliamentary way."[285]
[285] Palgrave's "House of Commons," p. 18. (The Speaker, however,
does not appear to have thought it necessary to call upon the member
for Coventry to withdraw his fierce and unparliamentary expression.)
In the reign of Charles II. riotous debates were of frequent if not
daily occurrence. When Titus Oates appeared at the bar of the Commons
to accuse Queen Katherine of high treason, partisan excitement reached
a dangerous pitch. In 1675, a free fight between Lord Cavendish and
Sir John Hanmer was only prevented by the tact of Speaker Seymour,
who resumed the Chair on his own responsibility--the House was in
Committee at the time--and managed to quell the disturbance before
blows had been exchanged.
Scenes of a less serious nature took place on many occasions. Andrew
Marvell, the much respected member for Hull, was entering the House of
Commons one morning when he accidentally stumbled against the
outstretched leg of Sir Philip Harcourt. In recovering himself,
Marvell playfully dealt Sir Philip a resounding box on the ear. The
Speaker at once drew the attention of the House to this affront, and
members became greatly excited. When Marvell was at length allowed an
opportunity of speaking, he explained that "what passed was through
great acquaintance and familiarity" between Sir Philip and himself,
and that his blow was merely a token of deep affection. After a heated
debate the matter was allowed to drop, though other members of the
House must subsequently have fought shy of making friends with a man
who expressed his liking in so boisterous and painful a fashion.[286]
[286] Andrew Marvell's "Works," vol. ii. p. 33. (Sir Philip Harcourt
might well have anticipated the remark made by the Georgian monarch
who, while leaning out of a window, received a severe blow from a
footman who had mistaken the royal back for that of his
fellow-domestic, James. "Even if I had been James," the King
plaintively exclaimed, "you needn't have hit me so hard!")
The fact that many members of both Houses frequently attended the
debates in an advanced stage of intoxication was, perhaps, the cause
of most of the parliamentary unpleasantness of past days. At
Westminster, indeed, the sobriety of legislators was scarcely more
noticeable than at Edinburgh, where the Scottish Parliament that met
on the Restoration of Charles II. was forced to adjourn, owing to the
fact that the Commissioner Middleton and most of the members were too
drunk to deliberate.
Instances of parliamentary intemperance and its natural results were
common enough in those days. In 1621, a quarrel arose in the House of
Lords between the Earl of Berkshire and Lord Scrope. The former
quickly lost his temper and laid violent hands on his colleague. For
this he was called to the bar, censured by the Lord Chancellor, and
committed to the Tower. Again, at a conference between the two English
Houses, in 1666, the Lords behaved to one another with extreme
discourtesy. The Duke of Buckingham opened the proceedings by leaning
across Lord Dorchester in a rude and offensive manner. The latter
gently but firmly removed the intruding elbow, and on being asked if
he were uncomfortable, replied that he certainly was, and that nowhere
but in the House of Lords would the Duke dare to behave in so boorish
a fashion. Buckingham irrelevantly retorted that he was the better man
of the two, whereupon Dorchester told his noble colleague that he was
a liar. The Duke then struck off the other's hat, seized hold of his
periwig, and began to pull him about the Chamber. At this moment,
luckily, the Lord Chamberlain and several peers interposed, and the
two quarrelsome noblemen were sent to the Tower to regain control of
their tempers.
The Commons meanwhile were behaving in no less reprehensible a manner.
"Sir Allen Brodricke and Sir Allen Apsly did come drunk the other day
into the House," says Pepys, "and did both speak for half an hour
together, and could not be either laughed, or pulled, or bid to sit
down."[287] Such a state of things was so usual in either House at the
time as to provoke neither comment nor criticism. The tone of society
may be gauged from the fact that at the end of the seventeenth century
it was not thought peculiar for a party of Cabinet Ministers,
including the Earl of Rochester, then Lord High Treasurer of England,
stripped to their shirts and riotously intoxicated, to climb the
nearest signpost in order to drink the King's health from a suitable
point of vantage.[288]
[287] "Diary," December 19, 1666.
[288] Reresby's "Memoirs," p. 231.
The usual condition of the Commons during the hearing of election
petitions a hundred years later has been forcibly described by Thomas
Townshend. "A House of twenty or thirty members," he says, "half
asleep during the examination of witnesses at the bar, the other half
absent at Arthur's or Almack's, ... returning to vote so intoxicated
that they could scarcely speak or stand." It must, however, be
admitted that members' frequent potations did not always affect their
utterance. Indeed, they sometimes appear to have had an entirely
opposite result. In 1676, Lord Carnarvon, under the influence of wine,
made a remarkably humorous and able speech in the House of Lords,
causing the Duke of Buckingham to exclaim, "The man is inspired, and
claret has done the business!" Charles Townshend, too, whom Burke
called the delight and ornament of the House, and who was offered the
Chancellorship of the Exchequer by Pitt, seems to have been far more
eloquent in his cups than at any other time. He is chiefly famous for
making what is known as the "Champagne Speech" of May 12th, 1767--a
speech which, as Walpole declared to a friend, nobody but Townshend
could have made, and nobody but he would have made if he could. It was
at once a proof that his abilities were superior to those of all men,
and his judgment below that of any man. It showed him capable of
being, and unfit to be, Prime Minister. "He beat Chatham in language,
Burke in metaphors, Grenville in presumption, Rigby in impudence,
himself in folly, and everybody in good humour."[289] Half a bottle of
champagne, as Walpole said, poured on genuine genius, had kindled this
wonderful blaze.
[289] "Extracts of the Journals and Correspondence of Miss Berry,"
vol. ii. p. 35.
Pitt, as is well known, possessed a marvellously strong head. He and
Dundas one evening finished seven bottles without the slightest
difficulty, and he would often fortify himself with whole tumblers of
his favourite wine before going down to Westminster.[290]
[290] Samuel Rogers' "Recollections," p. 112.
It was during the famous debate of February 21, 1783, when Fox was
defending the Peace of Paris, that Pitt retired behind the Speaker's
Chair to be actively unwell, at the same time keeping his hand up to
his ear that he might miss none of his rival's points. His conduct on
this occasion affected one of the sensitive clerks at the Table with a
violent attack of neuralgia--a providential division of labour, as
Pitt pointed out, whereby he himself had enjoyed the wine while the
clerk had the headache! It has often been considered surprising that
Pitt should have been able to exercise such influence on the House
after drinking three bottles of strong port, but, as a distinguished
statesman has observed, it must be remembered that he was addressing
an assembly few of whose members had drunk less than two.
[Illustration: HENRY BROUGHAM
QUEEN CAROLINE'S ATTORNEY-GENERAL, AFTERWARDS LORD HIGH CHANCELLOR OF
GREAT BRITAIN
_From the painting by James Lonsdale in the National Portrait
Gallery_]
At the commencement of the nineteenth century, when Abbot was in the
Chair, the member for Southampton, Fuller by name, entered the House
in a hazy but happy frame of mind, which induced him to mistake the
Speaker in his wig for an owl in an ivy bush. He was promptly removed
by the Sergeant-at-Arms, and kept in custody until his eyesight had
resumed its normal condition.[291] Another member, Sir George Rose,
arrived at Westminster in a condition which inspired him to call upon
the Speaker for a comic song, and led to his being taken in charge by
the Sergeant-at-Arms.
[291] Townsend's "History," vol. ii. p. 93.
Lord Chancellor Brougham used to refresh himself copiously while upon
the Woolsack, and, during his four-hour speech on the Reform Bill,
drank no less than five tumblers of mulled port and brandy.[292] There
was, therefore, perhaps some reason for his extreme indignation when
the Duke of Buckingham referred to the possibility of disturbing him
in the midst of his "potations pottle deep"--a quotation which
Brougham did not recognize, and which evoked from him a violent
outburst.[293]
[292] Campbell's "Lives of the Chancellors."
[293] Grant's "Recollections of the House of Lords" (1834). (This is
not the only instance of a well-known quotation passing unrecognized
in Parliament. In 1853, when Bishop Wilberforce made a good-humoured
attack on Lord Derby, the latter remarked that a man might "smile and
smile and be a villain," and thereby caused much excitement among the
Lords, who had not recently studied their "Hamlet.")
Peers and members of Parliament to-day have no such weaknesses, or, at
any rate, refrain from exhibiting them in Parliament. There have been,
of course, exceptional instances, even in modern times, of persons
speaking under the influence of drink, but these are so rare as
scarcely to deserve mention. An Irishman in a conspicuously genial
frame of mind referred to a Conservative member in the lobby as a
"d---- fool." The latter overheard this remark and contemptuously
retorted that his honourable friend was drunk. "I may be drunk,"
admitted the Irishman, "but to-morrow I shall be sober. Whereas you'll
be a d---- fool to-morrow, and the next day, and all the rest of your
life!" During one of those interminable sittings of 1877, when
obstruction was at its height, another Irishman, "weary with watching,
and warm with whisky," applied the same opprobrious term to a fellow
member. On being ordered to withdraw the expression he explained that
it "was only a quotation." "Whether the remark of the hon. gentleman
can be explained by a quotation or a potation," said the Chairman, "it
is equally inadmissible, and I must beg him in future to mind his p's
and q's."[294]
[294] "Quarterly Review," vol. cxlv. p. 247.
Irish members have probably been the cause of more parliamentary
disturbance than all the rest of their colleagues put together. Daniel
O'Connell, whom Disraeli once called "the vagabond delegate of a
foreign priesthood,"[295] was a perpetual source of trouble to the
House. In 1840, he was the centre of one of the most noisy scenes that
has ever outraged its dignity. Macaulay declared that he had never
before or since seen such unseemly behaviour, or heard such scurrilous
language used in Parliament. Members on both sides of the House stood
up and shouted at the tops of their voices, shaking their fists in one
another's faces.[296] Lord Norreys and Lord Maidstone particularly
distinguished themselves by the pandemonium they created, while others
of their colleagues gave farmyard imitations, and for a long time the
whole House continued in a state of ferment. O'Connell's reference to
the sounds emitted by honourable gentlemen as "beastly bellowings"
only made matters worse. As a French visitor who was present during
this scene has described: "Pendant plusieures heures plus de cinq
cents membres crient de toutes leurs forces 'à l'ordre! à la porte
O'Connell!' le tout accompagné des imitations zoologiques les plus
étranges et les plus affreuses. C'étaient les cris de deux armées de
sauvages en presence."[297]
[295] "Letters of Runnymede," p. 6.
[296] Trevelyan's "Life of Macaulay," vol. ii. p. 76.
[297] "La France et L'Angleterre," par F. de Tassies. (Quoted in
O'Connell's "Recollections," vol. i. p. 261.)
"Imitations zoologiques" have always been a popular but by no means
the only method employed by members desirous of drowning the words of
a tiresome speaker. John Rolle, the hero of the "Rolliad," promoted a
"smoking and spitting party "to interrupt and annoy Burke.[298] In
1784, the latter told a number of youthful opponents who interrupted
him with their howls that he could teach a pack of hounds to yelp with
more melody and equal comprehension. Ten years before the O'Connell
scene Brougham excited the House to uproar of a similarly puerile
character. He remained calm and unmoved, however, and, when the
bestial cries of his audience subsided for a moment, pleasantly
observed that by a wonderful disposition of nature every animal had
its peculiar mode of expressing itself, and that he was too much of a
philosopher to quarrel with any of those modes--a remark which does
not appear to have subdued the clamour to any appreciable extent.[299]
A similar uproar which the Speaker was powerless to quell arose in
1872, when Sir Charles Dilke brought forward a motion to inquire into
the manner in which the income and allowances of the Crown were spent.
[298] Thomas Moore's "Memoirs," vol. ii. p. 296.
[299] Miss Martineau's "History of the Peace," vol. ii. p. 381.
Members who are anxious to bring a debate to a close still have
recourse to sound, crying, "'Vide! 'Vide!" in an earsplitting
fashion, which occasionally evokes a rebuke from the Speaker. But
there is seldom, nowadays, such a scene of violence as occurred in
both Houses upon the dissolution of Parliament in April, 1831. The
Commons indulged in a painful scene "of bellowing, and roaring, and
gnashing of teeth, which it was almost frightful to look at," says
Cockburn.[300] In the Upper House peers behaved no less childishly.
Lord Mansfield doubled up his fist, elbowed Lord Shaftesbury into the
Chair, and hooted Lord Brougham as he left the House.[301] Lord
Lyndhurst, meanwhile, was threatening the Duke of Richmond with
physical violence, and the uproar was only quelled by the arrival of
the King.[302] One must not, of course, forget the notorious modern
instance of ill manners, already described,[303] when, in 1893,
members exchanged blows upon the floor of the Commons. This, however,
is a painful exception, little likely to recur.
[300] Cockburn's "Life of Jeffrey," vol. i. p. 317.
[301] Duncombe's "Life of his Father," vol. i. p. 115.
[302] Brougham's "Life," vol. iii. p. 117.
[303] Supra, p. 131.
Politicians have learnt to control their feelings, and the present
publicity of parliamentary proceedings acts as a salutary deterrent to
outbursts of the elemental passions. Neither House to-day would dream
of expressing its emotion in the open fashion common to Parliaments of
long ago. The sight of a Lower Chamber dissolved in tears is no longer
possible. Yet, in 1626, when, by the King's command, no discussion was
permitted on the question of Buckingham's impeachment, a lachrymose
Speaker led the whole House of Commons in a chorus of weeping. Two
years later Sir Edward Coke welcomed the introduction of the Petition
of Right in a voice choked with sobs. Wingfield wept for joy when
monopolies were abolished in Queen Elizabeth's reign,[304] and we have
already noted the tears shed by Colonel Wanklyn when he was expelled,
and by Speaker Finch when he was forcibly detained in the Chair. Fox
shed frequent tears in the House of Commons; Pitt wept bitterly when
his friend, Lord Melville, was impeached. Lord Chancellors, too, were
not ashamed to express their feelings in loud sobs, Eldon's eyes
becoming sympathetically moist, while even the "rugged Thurlow"
sprinkled the Woolsack with his tears.
[304] Townshend's "Proceedings of Both Houses," p. 252.
Members no longer weep, except perchance in the privacy of their own
homes; nor do they follow their predecessors' fashion of converting
the House of Commons into a smoking-room or a lounge, in which to
sleep off the effects of their potations. The free and easy habits of
seventeenth-century politicians made it necessary for a regulation to
be framed that "No tobacco should be taken by any member in the
gallery, nor at the table sitting in Committees."[305] And it was no
uncommon sight, a hundred years ago, to see members stretched at full
length on the benches of the Chamber, with their feet resting on the
backs of the seats in front of them, punctuating the proceedings with
their stertorous snores.[306]
[305] Regulations in the Journals, March 23, 1693.
[306] "L'lllustre enceinte présente souvent l'aspect d'une assemblée
de _yankees_ beaucoup plus que celui d'une réunion de _gentlemen_."
Franqueville's "Le Gouvernement et le Parlement britaniques," vol.
iii. p. 74.
Lord North was notorious for his gift of somnolence in the House of
Commons. "Behold," said Edmund Burke, with that indifferent taste for
which he was noted, as he pointed to the recumbent figure of the Prime
Minister, "the Government, if not defunct, at least nods; brother
Lazarus is not dead, but sleepeth." North was dozing on another
occasion when a member attacked him fiercely, saying that he ought
certainly to be impeached for his misdeeds. "At least," exclaimed the
Minister, waking for a moment, "allow me the criminal's usual
privilege--a night of rest before the execution!"[307] He felt no
shame at giving way to slumber in debate, and when an opponent
remarked that "Even in the midst of these perils, the noble lord is
asleep!" "I wish to God I was!" he replied with heartfelt
fervour.[308] He would always take the opportunity afforded by a
lengthy speech to snatch forty winks. Once, when the long-winded
Colonel Barré was addressing the House on the naval history of
England, tracing it back to the earliest ages, North asked a friend to
wake him up as soon as the speaker approached modern times. When at
length he was aroused, "Where are we?" asked the Premier, anxiously.
"At the battle of La Hogue, my lord." "Oh, my dear friend," said
North, "you've woken me a century too soon!"[309]
[307] Timbs' "Anecdotal Biography," vol. i. p. 234.
[308] Pryme's "Recollections," p. 114.
[309] Harford's "Recollections of Wilberforce," p. 94.
A marked improvement in the conduct of modern debate is to be noticed
in the comparatively inoffensive character of the epithets used by
members with reference to their opponents. The decencies of debate
are, as a rule, religiously observed. Recriminations are rare.
Measures are attacked, not men. The secession of a statesman is
considered a political but not a personal offence, and what Palmerston
once called the "puerile vanity of consistency" is no longer
worshipped fanatically. Gladstone rightly called the House of Commons
a "school of temper," as well as a school of honour and of justice.
Offensive allusions have always been deprecated there, but it is only
within the last few score years that members have controlled their
tongues to any appreciable extent in this direction. Hasty remarks are
nowadays withdrawn at the first suggestion of the Speaker, though on
occasion an apology may be as offensive as the original insult. Lord
Robert Cecil (afterwards Lord Salisbury) said of a speech of
Gladstone's in 1861, that it was "worthy of a pettifogging attorney."
Soon afterwards he rose in the House, and said that he wished to
apologise for a remark he had lately made. "I observed that the speech
of the right hon. gentleman was worthy of a pettifogging attorney," he
said, "and I now hasten to offer my apologies--to the attornies!"
It is usual nowadays to wrap up offensive criticisms in a more or less
palatable covering, to attack by inference rather than by direct
assault. "I am no party man," said Colonel Sibthorpe, member for
Lincoln, after the dissolution of Sir Robert Peel's Government. "I
have never acted from party feelings; but I must say I do not like the
countenances of honourable gentlemen opposite, for I believe them to
be the index of their minds. I can only say, in conclusion, that I
earnestly hope that God will grant the country a speedy deliverance
from such a band."[310] This is a good example of an unpleasant thing
framed in a manner which does not lay it open to the stigma of
disorderly language, and is just as effective as that oft-quoted
attack made by a member of the Irish House of Commons on George
Ponsonby (afterwards Irish Chancellor), whose sister was sitting in
the gallery at the time. "These Ponsonbys are the curse of my
country," said the member; "they are prostitutes, personally and
politically--from the toothless old hag who is now grinning in the
gallery to the white-livered scoundrel who is now shivering on the
floor!"[311]
[310] Grant's "Recollections," p. 140.
[311] Hayward's "Essays," pp. 364-5.
[Illustration: THE HOUSE OF COMMONS IN WALPOLE'S DAY
FROM THE ENGRAVING BY A. FOGG
THE FIGURES FROM LEFT TO RIGHT ARE:--SIR ROBERT WALPOLE, THE RT. HON.
ARTHUR ONSLOW, SYDNEY GODOLPHIN (FATHER OF THE HOUSE), SIR JOSEPH
JEKYL, COL. ONSLOW, EDWARD STABLES, ESQ. (CLERK OF HOUSE OF COMMOMS),
SIR JAMES THORNHILL, MR. AISKEW (CLERK ASSISTANT)]
Members who consider themselves aggrieved or insulted have now no
redress save by an appeal to the Speaker. In old days they often took
the matter into their own hands, and many a duel was the outcome of
hasty words spoken in Parliament. So prevalent, indeed, did the habit
of duelling become, that in 1641 a resolution was passed in the
Commons empowering the Speaker to arrest any member who either sent or
received a challenge. The practice of parliamentary duelling long
continued, in spite of every effort to stifle it. Wilkes was wounded
in 1763 in Hyde Park by a member named Martin, who had called him "a
cowardly scoundrel." Lord Castlereagh and Canning met in 1809, and
had, in consequence, to resign their seats in the Cabinet.[312] Lord
Alvanley fought Morgan O'Connell, son of the Liberator, on his
father's account. Charles James Fox was challenged by Mr. Adam, of the
Ordnance Department, for a personal attack made in the House of
Commons, and faced him in the old Kensington Gravel Pits. At the first
shot Adam's bullet lodged harmlessly in his opponent's belt. "If
you hadn't used Ordnance powder," said Fox, with a laugh, as he shook
hands with Adam after the fight, "I should have been a dead man."[313]
[312] Bell's "Life of Canning," p. 251.
[313] Pryme's "Recollections," p. 235.
If duels were fought in those days on very slight provocation,
challenges were also occasionally declined on equally poor grounds.
Colonel Luttrell, member for Middlesex, and afterwards Lord
Carhampton, refused to fight his own father, not because he was his
father, but because he was not a gentleman!
The last duel between politicians was that fought by the Duke of
Wellington and Lord Winchelsea, as the result of some remarks made by
the latter during a debate on the Roman Catholic Emancipation Bill in
1830. Since that time no parliamentary dispute has been referred to
the arbitrament of the pistol.
Although there has been a perceptible improvement in parliamentary
deportment as the centuries have advanced, the same can scarcely be
said of parliamentary dress. In the time of Charles II.,
knee-breeches, silk stockings, and silver-buckled shoes were
absolutely _de rigueur_ for members of the Commons. A hundred years
later members of Parliament always wore court dress, with bag-wig and
sword, in the House. The formal costume prescribed by etiquette was
rigidly adhered to, and none but county members were permitted the
privilege of wearing spurs.[314] At this time, too, Cabinet Ministers
were never seen in Parliament without the ribbons and decorations of
the various orders to which they belonged. The regulation which bids
the mover and seconder of the Address to appear in court dress on the
first day of the new Parliament is the only relic of this custom.
[314] Lord Colchester's "Diary," vol. i. p. 45.
Fifty years ago no member of either House would have appeared within
the precincts of the Palace of Westminster wearing anything upon his
head but a high silk hat. Gradually, however, a certain laxity in the
matter of head-gear has crept into Parliament, and to-day, not only
"bowlers," but even "cricketing caps" may be seen reposing upon the
unabashed heads of members. Peers, as a rule, conform to the older
fashion, and Cabinet Ministers usually dress in a respectably sombre
garb. But among the rank and file of the House of Commons may
occasionally be found members wearing check suits of the lightest and
loudest patterns, and hats of every conceivable variety, ranging from
the æsthetic "Homburg" to the humble cloth cap. The passing of the top
hat must necessarily appear somewhat in the light of a tragedy to
older parliamentarians. In both Houses the hat has long come to be
regarded as a sacred symbol. It is with this article of clothing that
the member daily secures his claim to a seat on the benches of the
House of Commons; with a hat he occasionally expresses his enthusiasm
or sympathy; on a hat does he sit at the close of a speech, with the
certainty of raising a laugh; and without a hat he cannot speak upon a
point of order when the House has been cleared for a division.
When the Labour Party began to take an important place in the popular
assembly, it was thought that this democratic invasion would have an
actively detrimental effect upon the dress of the House. Old-fashioned
members shook their heads and prophesied an influx of hobnailed
artisans, clad in corduroys, their trousers confined at the knee with
string, and in their mouths a short clay pipe. These gloomy
forebodings have not been realised. With very few exceptions the dress
of Labour members is little calculated to offend the most sensitive
eye, though it was certainly one of their number who first entered a
startled House of Commons in a tweed stalking-cap--a form of
head-dress which it is certainly difficult to forgive.