The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-08-13

were more lofty and less powerful, holding to
rank more than authority and to precedence
rather than sway. Between them and the
lords was the shade of difference which there
is between vanity and pride. For the French
| peers to take rank of foreign princes, to have
the precedence Of Spanish grandees, to go
| before patricians of Venice, to make the
| French marshals the Constable and the Ad-
| miral of France (were he even Count Of lou
| louise and son of Louis XIV sit on the lower
| benches of the Parliament, to distinguish
| between male and female duchies, to main
| tain the interval between a simple earldom
| like Armagnac or Albret, and a peerage-
earldom like Evreux, to have the right
| of wearing, in certain cases, the blue
| ribbon or the golden fleece at the age of
| twenty-five, to counterbalance the Due de
| la Tremoille, the oldest peer of the palace, by
| the Due Dues, the oldest peer in Parlia-
| ment to claim as many pages and horses for
| their coach as an elector, to be called Mon
| seigneur by the first president to discuss
whether the Due de Maine had peers rank as
Comte d'Eu, after 1863 to cross the great
chamber diagonally or along the sdes-that
was their great business. The great business
of the lords was the act of navigation, the test
act. the dominion of the SEAS the expulsion
of the Stuarts, the war with France. Here.
etiquette before all; there, empire before all.
The peers of England had the booty, the
peers of France the shadow
In short, the English House of Lords was n
tartng-point. This is an immense step in
civilization. 1t had the honor of beginning
the national life. 1t was the first incarnation
Of popular unity. English resistance. that
vague but omnipotent force, had its birth in
the House of Lords. The barons, by a Sc
ries of assaults on the prince, sketched
out his final dethrouement. The House of
Lords nowadays is a little surprised and
sad at what it has done unwillingly and un-
Willingly. All the more, because it is irrevo-
cable. What are concessions? Restitutions
And the nations know it. Il grant, says the
king. II get back my own, say the people.
The House of Lords thought it was creating
privileges for peers; it produced rights for
citizens. The vultue Of aristocracy Matched
the eagles S egg of liberty.
The egg is now broken; the eagle flies aloft.
the vultue is expiring.
England grows in greatness, while her aris-
tOcracy is in its last agony
But let us be just to the aristocracy. 1t was
balance and barrier; a counterpoise to
royalty, an obstacle to despotism
Let us bury it with all the honors.
Near Westminster Abbey was an oldNormau
palace, which hadbeen burnt in Henry Wits
time. Two wings of it remained. Edward
VI placed the Chamber Of Lords in one, and
the Chamber of the Commons in the other.
Neither the two wings nor the two cham
bers now exist 1t has all been rebuilt.
We have said it and must emphasize it.
there is no resemblance between the present
and the former House Of Lords. In demolsh-
ing the old palace the old usages were some
what demolished Every stroke Of the pick
axe in a monument makes a corresponding
stroke in customs and charters. An old stone
cannot fall without bringing down an old law
with it. Place a square-halled senate in
round hall, it will be something different.
Changing the shell changes the shape of the
shelfsh.
If you want to preserve anything old, pro-
fame or sacred, code OF dogma, patricate or
priesthood, don't renew anything. not even
the outside. Patch it, at most. For instance,
Jesuitism is a patch let into Catholicism.
Treat buildings as you treat institutions.
Shades must dwell in ruins. Decrepit
powers are uncomfortable in newly-decorated
dwellings, Ragged institutions require di-
lapidated palaces.
To show the interior of the House of
Lords of days gone by, is to show something
unknown. History is night. There is no
| background to it. Everything is consigned
! to insignifcance and darkness, so soon as it
ceases to be before the footlights. A scene,
once shifted, is effaced and forgotten. The
unknown is a synonym of the past.
The peers of England used to sit, as a court
of justice, in the great hall of Westminster
and, as the upper Legislative chamber, in
particular hall called tile HDUSe Of tie LOrdS
Besides the court of English peers which
only assemblies when summoned by the crown,
the two great English tribunals, inferior to
the court Of peers but superior to every
jurisdiction, sat in the great hall of West
minister At the upper end of this hall they
occupied two rooms which communicated.
The first tribunal was the Court of Kings
Bench, at which the king was supposed to
preside; the second was the Court of
Chancery, over which the lord
chancellor presided. One was a
court of justice, the other a court of
mercy. 1t was the chancellor who advised
the king to pardon-occas These
two courts, which still exist, interpreted the
laws, and slightly remodelled them; the
Judges art consists in tinkering the code.
Equity gets ont of this business as it best can.
The laws were made and applied in that grave
place, the great hall of Westminster. This
hall had a vaulted roof of chesnut. to which
spiders could not attach their webs; there
We're enough of them in the laws.
To sit as a court, and to sit as a chamber
of legislation, are two things. This duality
constitutes supreme power. The Long
Parliament which began November >,
1910, felt the radical necessity of this double
sword. Therefore it declared itself
a Judicial and legislative power at the same
time, like House of Peers.
This double power was immemorial III the
House of Lords. We have just said that, as
judges, the lords occupied Westminster Hall;
as legislators, they had another chamber
This other chamber, properly called the
oh ,lpnp and