The Express.
London, England, 1852-02-06 00:00:00

Or all the clu si in London, tho worst managed
and most uncomfortable is that of St. Stephen's.
That, even in the others, thmus do not nlways run
upon all fours, the public is occasionally led to suspect
by announcements of dismissals of secretaries and
Jr cuisine. Rot only in St. Stephen's is the
whole "rungs so intolerable, that instead of sitting
down quietly to read their papers, or entering upon
the political gossip which is the business of such re-
unions, the luckless members are driven to raise a
clamorous chorus of complaints so loud, that every
passer-by is deafentd by their lugubrious gabble.

On Wednesdae afternoon, at the time when the
members of the Itcfonn, the Carlton, and Coneerra-
tin., of Brookes', the Travellers', and the Athenaeum,
and of the Senior and Junior United Servitx., were
comfortably disetening tho merits of some racer or
opera-dancer, or the chance/1 of a ministerial change,
or the merits or demerits of the sold-out °Ri-
vers of the Blues' Loma NArotram, or Mr.
O'Coxsolt, the members of the St. Ste-
phen's Club could do nothing but heave groans,
and rent semi-articulate expressions of personal dis-
_

eciasfort. Mr. HUME cumpLiined of havit4 his partly
person "confined within such narrow limits." Capt.
Ft MOT remonstrated about " the stench and puffs of
alternate but and cold air which prevailed. Mr.
Illyas.u. ()minus compassionated the case of Major
HEKEAVOND, u%cr whose head "one of the lamps was
constantly leaking," and humanely advised the hon.
protectionist whipper.in to shift his seat to tho
*fristsury Hunch.
This, by the way, might not have much helped
the unctuous tunetionary,—the victim of this novel
kind of "extreme unction,"—fur lamp buspendsik
over the Treasury Botch are as ill•hchaved
their neighbours. That under which Lord JOHN
HUS:4ELL stood while explaining his fracas with
Lord I'voit ask os was suddenly extinguished, with-
out any apparent cause— all omen at which the bos-
om able member lot IVestbury was observed to tura
pale.
Mr. 11WINAL O:4UORNE also stated that only as
hour lalitre the club was opened on To=
"one of the candelabra tell, and went th
the fluor." Not even the heads of Weed
SOITOONI. or Mr. MUNTZ could have Irk&
stood such a concussion. Mr Fitxxen complained
of overcharges fur wine, of tablecloths too seldom
changed, and generally of inattention to the prandial
comforts of the weathers. Mr. ANNTEY complained
that the dinner committee, being composed exam.
'lively of protistants, due cure was not taken for pro.'
per supplies of fish on Fridays, whereby he and
others of his church were unabl • to lust comfortably.

Such talcs of woe might move the hearts of mill-
stones. The members of the St. Stephen's Club ap-
pear to be almost as ill lodged as the prisoners who
were confined in the blaekhole of Calcutta, and worse
fel than the inmates of tho Andover Workhouse
some years ago, or the seamen who may have eaten
the Admiralty preserved meats. Unless matters are
mend. d immediately it will be impossible to induce
candidates to come forward at the general election
which some believe to be at hand. Patriotism is a
powerful motive, but scarcely strong enough to
nerve men tp undergo suffocation, from being packed
close as negro slaves in the middle passage, poisoned
by stench, and alternate but and cold blasts, and,—
wont of all,—poisoned, like KING JOHN of Magna',
Charts memory, by " ill-fare."
One or two of the managing committee did, in-
deed, make a faint attempt to stem the general cur-
rent of complaint. Lord Mauves HILL defended
the wine tariff, alleging that very good sherry was
to be had for 4s. a bottle. And Lord SETMOVII.—
%hose courage when any harsh or disagreeable italiction has to be defended is well known,—stood boldly
up to vindicate the stenches and hot and cold blasts.
"The ventilation was not yet brought to complete
perfection, so that it coo 1 not be said to have had
a fair trial." Fair or not, the trial his now been in
progress for some years, and every year has added
to the sufferings of members. One year the air of
their "house' was insufferably hot and stifling;
next year they were all in danger from bronchitis,
from being exposed every alternate quarter of an
hour to the est:eines of heat and cold; and
now stench is supemdded. How long does
Lord SEYMOUR expect that mere mortal
patience can endure being thus experimented on ?
What conceivable amount of courage does he fancy
will enable men to submit to the next step of an
experiment which has year after year been making
them more and more intolerably uncomfortable?
Kindly nature would appear to have endowed his
lordship with a constitution to bear it, but he ought
to remember that it is not everybody that is so
toughly put together.

ihertmectic; suggested appear to us quite inade-
quate. On the chapters of dirty tablecloths, and
short-commons for those who prefer fish-dinners on
Fridays, nothing was said. Lord MARCUS HILL
appears to have insinuated that only French wines
are overcharged. Lord SEYMOUR'S panacea is a few
more experiments to ascertain whether the maximum
of malaria that mortals can endure has been attained.
These recommendations, us coming front officials,
might have been expected to fall short; but the
non-official palliative was quite as defective—it was
proposed to call Mr. BARRY and Dr. BOSWELL REID
to the tur of the bonne, or before acominittec.

Now, " honour to whom honour is due" is a sound
maxim; and equally sound is "blame to whom
blame is due." We do not think that the two gen-
tlemen named are fairly responsible for ell the local
discomforts and absurdities of the New Palace at
Westminster. It is an old and true saying that "too
many cooks spoil the broth," and what could be ex-
pected from Mr. BARRY when committees of both
Houses of Parliament, and Royal Highnesses and
noble and non-noble amateurs were all allowed a
voice potential on the designs for the new Houses of
Parliament? Every man's crotchet has been lis-
tened to; and moat men's crotchets have been
adopted ; and the consequence is an erection which
on the outside is so very pretty, so full of minute
Lottinesaes of detail, that in the sooty atmosphere of
Lndon wo must employ sonic PAXTON to blow •
glass cover for it ; but in the inside is sadly inap-
plicable to many purposes for which it was built.
Chen as to the ventilation, Dr. Buswekb Rem is no
doubt a kind of Ctisnwtee in his way; but the
great original error was in running up •
new building that required artificial appliances
to keep it well ventilated from the first. 11 ith old
ill-ventilated buildings we cannot help ourselves, we
must have their atmosphere purified as we beet can,
but in a 'pick and span new building, it was too bad
to run it up in a fashion that rendered it imper-
meable to pure air. Be it understood that the aim
of these remarks is not to exonerate Mr. BARRY or
Dr. Boswra.i. Rem, bat to show that they have ac-
complices. The offence of the architect and venti-
lator is that of having lent themselves, for the make
or a jolt, to a system of expensive humbug. And
we humbly conceive that the best way to cure the
mischief they have helped to make, is not so much
to' call these gent:eaten into " the House," but to
push them out of it at once mid for ever.
One other remark and we shall drop this most
curious and important theme. 'lle leginning of the
parliamentary session has much the appearance of one
of thane low practical jokes which the vulgar call
The habits of the legislature were too well
known for people to indulge in visionary e%pectations
of valuable measures,promptly and strenuously urged.
Hut the lovers of excitement were all agog, an hopes
of brisk spurting matches between the residuary
ministers and their late colleague. Even this modest
expectution has been disappointed. The affair be-
tween RUSMtI.II. and PALMI:RsToN went tamely off;
it was a match with the gloves only, not with the
naked fiats; and neither or the combetatits exerted
himself so much as /famiet in his fencing tout—'
they did not " sweat " as the Owes if Denmark
says her soli did. And, out the second night of the