The southern press. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1850-1852, 1851-04-12

~ N0Q5N@A - - 10& ~ - AsM1no@ AZ COWp&kts
son with ~ HoMae AZ Representatives. In the
course be men Of memnG There 10 nothing to
attract plain waxkIaa snon, or broken merchants
OF ingenious spectators. Only think Of Iegis-
lstson without per diem or pven mileage. Why
the man who makes thousAnd dollars by inn
aginary journeys TO and from our capital, would
be actually paying money IN London This plan
of making laws for nothing, is undoubtedly the
funniest idea that has been imagined since the
days Of Scion. | was told in England that the
members formerly received pay and relinquished
it themselves. But this hold to be impossible.
Just think Of our House even lowering their pay
reducing their pay, or reducing their expenses,
let alone abandoning them This is one of our
glorious peculiarites, closely connected with
the preservation Of our freedom. Whatever else
Inay be assaulted, the enormous expenditures of
Congress cannot be touched without Us consent,
and that, We may confidently hope, will never
be given. Another ridiculous absurdity about
the House of Commons is the place where it
meets-a room just large enough to hold it
This is the more absurd, because the burning Of
the old house gave them fine opportunity OF
building one like ours, with lofty columns and
dome. But although they have erected vast
palace, the room in which the House is to as
semble is no larger than before. II is true they
can hear one another, which, is more than can
be said Of ours--but what of that Who would
think OF preferring sound to sense in such case.
But It Is not merely the size and plainess OF the
room that object to- but the want of all con-
venicnces. Six hundred men and more crowded
together on benches like schoolbOys, or like an
audience at lecture, is pitiable spectacle CON-
pared with our noble Hall at Washington. No
desks, no arm-chars no facilities for writing
books or business letters, no supply of newspa-
pers or stationery. The consequence, MS might
have been expected, is that, instead of taking the
thing eisurely, the business is hurried through,
in order to release the members from their COM
fortress confinement What would be thought
in the district of an in portant debate finished in
single night! Some of the members, with
whom conversed, had never even heard Of our
| American method of cutting upthe business into
slices, and debating every interesting question
for an hour day. They were weak enough to
think the subjects would be apt to get confused,
as well rs to grow stale before we came to n
decision. One poor creature went so far as to
say he thought their method was more natural,
and agreed better with the way we manage things
| in private life. When two or three men meet
| (said he) to talk over matters Of business, they
do not talk of them in turn, but in succession
| Who er thinks in such case OF letting one
man talk ten minutes about one thing, and then
! the next man of another, and so on to the end.
This speech of my English frind will let you
into the secret Of their foolish notions on this
subject Their idea of parliamentary proceed
ings is that they must be conducted like an or
binary meeting for business, only on larger
scale and on more important subjects. lfa man
has anything to say, he says it, and sits down
when he is done. If he has nothing to say or
says too much, they stop him by showing their
impotence. Long speeches made usually
only by well known and experienced members,
and debates are conducted very much by the
same persons. How much nobler is our theory
and practice Of parliamentary eloquence. Our
idea is not that of meeting for business, but of
n college defamation, in which the speeches are
made for their own sake, and each competitor
may take his time whether he has anything to
say or not. In carrying out this idea, we are
beaten only by tie French, who not only have a
theatrical hall for the exhibition, but stage or
tribune, where the orator displays himself pre-
csely as at school and college. This is the only
foreign innovation which deserves to the intro
duced at Washington, and rejoice to see that
it has been proposed AS to that other propo-
sition of removing the desks and narrowing the
area, it is movement backwards towards the
antiquated barbarism of the mother country
and would no doubt be followed by a fatal
change from long to short and from fine to plain
speeches in our congressional eloquence, if not
from a noble rrodigaliiy to vulgar cheapness in
our egslation.-Prineton Magazine