Page:In defense of Harriet Shelley, and other essays.djvu/222

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

was paralyzed. The Right (the government side) could accomplish nothing. Then it hada saving idea. This idea was a curious one* It was to, have the President and the Vice-Presidents of the parlia ment trample the Rules under foot upon occasion I .

This, for a profoundly embittered minority, iconr strutted out of fire and gun-iootton! Iti wa& , time for idle strangers to go and ask leave, to /look clown out of a gallery and see what would be the result of> it.

��II. A MEMORABLE glT

��And now took place that memorable sitting of the House which broke! two; records. It lasted the best part of two days and a night, surpassing by half an hour the longest sitting known to the World s previous parliamentary history, and breaking the longrspeech record with Dr. Lecher s twelve-hour- effort^ , the longest flow of unbroken talk that ever came out of one mouth since the world began.; m\\>t, oi rrotinm i;

At 8.45, on the evening of the 28th of October, when the House had been sitting a fewf minutes short of ten hours, Dr. Lecher was granted the floor. It was a good place for theatrical effects. I think that no other Senate House is so shapely as this one, or so richly and showily decorated. Its plan is that of an opera-house. Up toward the, straight side of it the stage side rise a couple of terraces, of desks for the ministry, and the official clerks .or secretaries terraces thirty feet long; ; and each; ; supporting about half a dozen desks with spaces between them. Above these is the President s terrace, >agaiiist the

�� �