Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1864-02-18
The American Congress and the British Parlia-
ment.-EieWs of an Eminent English Ceres



The piquant pen of Mr.'G. Augusta Sala,
/ the cis-Atlantic correspondent for the Lon
don Daily Telegraph, has touched vein in
the contrast between the American Congress
and the British Parliament. Leaving the
/ beaten track of his special profession, which
/ is to deride all things American, and only
| laud whatever Albion can call her own, Mr.
! Sala makes our Republican Assembly the
text for a refreshing satire on the Lords and
| Commons of England. A Congressman had
agreed to introduce him to the floor of the
House, but they missed each other Mr.. Sala
says:
| "Still got on pretty well without him. \
very civil door-keeper told me that soon as
the machine was running, and the roll Of
| the members called, he would send in my card
to the gentleman of whom | Was IN quest !;
yes, civil door-keeper! Only imagine
decenty courteous janitor at the door of the
House of Commons | suppose that most
Englishmen of the middle class have had, at
some time of their lives, to ask for an order
for the strangers gallery, or have been anx-
ious to confer for a moment with a member
of Parliament while the House was sitting. |
suppose we have most of US gone through
those humiliating and repulsive Ordeals that
we have been ordered out OF the way by po-
icemen have failed to obtain a civil answer
to a question, and that over most Of US has
come a burning desire to cudgel the innocent
overbearing, and ignorant fellows, who occu-
Ply the leathern chairs at the House. The
state Of the case is very different here. For
such a nation of office seekers as they are,
To off nit iS WIN
ly rare"
"Jacks-in- notice" always abound where
there is no lively competition for, and rota-
ton in, office. There is quite enough of them
even in the great republicans more extern
sive observation would convince Mr. Sala-
and we can readily believe that they flourish
rankly in England Other contrasts he hits
happily thus
"There were, perhaps, score of function
aries posted at the point of ingress to the
two houses but they gave themselves no
airs; they returned no doggedly, surly or
openly impairment replies. | missed again
the double lane of cringing clients, thrust
back b. the constables of the A division. |
missed the men with projects, the men with
companies. the men with grievances, and who
have gone half mad thereupon; the doletul
creatures with mouldy newspapers, piles of
prospectus, and reams of dogs cared CORES
pondence, following the NJ. P.'s about, hang
ing on their buttons, glozing in their ears,
and making their lives a torment to them. |
missed even the pert, consequential, and fus-
sy demeanor of the legislators themselves, as
they passed to and from the House. a Brit
ish NJ P, once within the great door Of West
minister Hall, seldom fails to let you know
that he is one of the collective wisdom of
the nation. Outside he has been squabbling
in Old Palace yard with a cabman over a six
penny fare; but but get him into the lobby
and he is superb. The police defer to him;
the insolent dOorkeepers arch their backs
and hinge their knees if he deign to speak to
them. Although he may say never a word
from session to session, and has been a silent
member ever since he sat in the unreformed
Parliament for Old Sarum, he contrives, some
how, to persuade you that he is very great
parsonage; that the tesselated tiles, the fres-
Goes, the statues, the Gothic carving and
gliding all belong to him that he is one who
has stationery and a smoking-room found
him by grateful country, and who gets any
humber of blue books for nothing. I will
not say a word in respect of his power to OBJ
tain tidewaiterships, letter-carriers' situations,
Or nominations for the inland revenue for his
friends, relatives or dependents. Such
power may be among the attributes of the
American legislators. But they fail to show
it at the Immediate entrance to the hall of
debate. Wherever the 'log-rolling,' the en-
cheering, the wire pulling and the pipe
laying are done, a stranger sees nothing of
those processes in the lobby; whereas, in
England you cannot be FIVE minutes in the
rli hai,,
that you are in the presence of mob of suit
ors and hangers-on and genteel beggers The
begging is done somewhere, l presume, at
Washington, over the bar at Wizards, per-
haps, or in the BARRIERS shop in the hall,
where the white jerkined negroes shave so
deftly"
To this he adds:
''The accommodation for the general pub
lie, in both Houses of the American Legisla-
ture, is magnificent. No interest, no influ-
| ence, no fees to door keepers, no favoriteism,
bar the portals or unloose their latches The
sovereign people who pay the taxes are free
to enter the Council Chamber Of their nation
at all seasonable hours, and hear the why and
the wherefore OF their being taxed. The la
dies, instead Of being by an absurd and bar
barous tradition, ignored, admitted only on
sutferance, and then cooped up in wretched
little corner to peep at the members through
Gothic trellis-work, like an ornamental meat
screen-iust as though theywere oriental oda-
lisques, assisting by stealth at the perform
ance Of an opera-haye capacious and luxuri-
ously carpeted galleries for their use. There
they sit and listen, and, so far as I could
judge, do not gossip"
Foreigners have not unfrequently ridiculed
what they styled the tameness or uninterest-
ing aspect of our national legislature The
worth of such criticism is well exhibited by
Mr.. Sala. After describing, in sentence or
two, the organization of the House, he pro-
ceeds:
'This was all. The school was at work
the machine was running" There was no
blasting of trumpets, no bowling and scraping
of court creatures, stuck all over with gold
lace no dangling of ribbons, no glittering of
stars nor was there any unseemly helter-
SHELTER rush of members from one House to
the other to hear speech read. When the
rowdyism is to begin-if to begin 1t is destin-
| ed-when the members are to set to abusing
or cowhiding one another, or exchanging i'm
| putations of cowardice, mendacity, fraud and
drunkenness, | do not know. Everything
| which l beheld appeared to me thoroughly
modest, simple, and noble-the free citizens
| of great commonwealth setting about the
task of governing themselves, and doing it
sensibly and we'll"
| To the same point he further says:
| q have watched, in my time great many
! deliberative assemblies in sesSion-from Brit
: ish Parliaments to imperial Senates-from
| joint stock companies board meetings to par
ish vestries The sight witnessed on the 18th
of December reminded me very strangely and
forcibly of an entirely new conclave. 1t was
as though l saw beneath me spacious, no.
! bic and Mell-goYerned school. MANY of the