The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-03-06
HUMoRS OF PARLIAMENT
 TARY REPORTING.

& %
 < E s5essAXSsSts London.-The inability to hear distinct | ly in the reporters gallery of the House of Commons has been the source of many
 curious blunders in reporting the speeches | of members of parliament. Not so very | long ago, for instance, Sir William liar court, in the course of a terrifls onslaught | on MT. Chamberlain, exclaimed, Great Is Diana of the Ephesiansl' Next morn
 ing provincial newspaper improved up- on the quotation in this novel fashion,
 Great Dinah. what a fare this is,' On a number of occasions classical al-
 lusions to Cato and Brutus' have been | reported as Cats and Brutes." The fa-
 nous saying of Drummond, the Irish un-
 der Secretary. Property has its duties
 as well as it's rights" has been given as Prosperity has its duties for which it fights"
 These blunders are by no means entire ly due to the carelessness of the reporter. Indeed. when one thinks of the number of stages through which the report of parliamentary speech has to pass from | the time the words leave the lips of the | speaker until they appear in print in the | morning paper the wonder is that the re- port so often escapes without any dis tortion of meaning in the process But even if the reporter had succeeded
 in getting the words correctly in short
 hand on his notebook, he may misread
 them in transcription. for the forms of | shorthand are sometimes bewildering,
 even to the writer. or he may transcribe
 them in long hand so vile or with such plenitude of contractions, that the tele- | graph clerk cannot be blamed for con | fusing them in transmission. And even | if the report has been plainly written, l faulty signaling by careless telegraphists. | or mechanical or electrical defects in the
 wires. win make sad mess of 1t in send
 ing it to newspaper In the provinces. | A telegraph clerk in forwarding a | speech of MT. Foster, on education, to
 a daily paper in Bradford substituted
 the word kid" in place of "child," trust
 ing that the alteration would be correct
 ed by the operator at the other end of
 the wire. Imagine the right honarble
 gentleman's feelings next morning when
 he read: You know of Wordworth's
 profound saying, "The kid is father to the
 man."
 These are all friends, well-known | friends" exclaimed Mir Golden after cit | ing the names of many authorities in sup | port of the views he was laying before
 the house. They are all fiends. well | him. An Irish member, describing one of the processions to the house, was rep | resented as having said. The people rent | the air with ten thousands shouts" The late Earl of Carnavon was credited | with having said: "In these days clergymen are expected to have the wis dom and learning of a journeyman
 tailor" instead of the wisdom and learn | ing of Jeremy Taylor" During the Crimean war the following sentence ap-
 peared in dispatch that was read in the | house. Our troops had marched across Belbec and drawn up in front of the north
 forts" It appeared in some of the papers as: "Our troops had marched | across the Baltic and drawn up in front of the North Foreland."
 | The reason why misrepresentation of
 a members speech appears in more than | one paper Is because the reporters in the
 gallery, not hearing distinctly, consult | one another's notes, and make out yer | sion as best they can for the common benefit. The Irish members, partlcu- larly, have often been humorously mis- quoted. Smartng. as usual, under a sense of his country's wrongs, a member from the Emerald Isle once told the | house that "the constabulary fired l shower of bullets on the people" But | the point of the honorable genteman's l denunciatton of Saxon tyranny was sadly blunted when it appeared in print as "a
 shower of bullets"
 l i've have a greater stake in the lana | than politics." exclaimed another lrlsh | member; and the reporter rendered It: l ''We have a greater stake in the lahu
 tban notatoes." MT Swift MacNeil was onca made to say. "The resident magis- trates could no more state case than they could ride a Greek goat instead of write a Greek ode.3
 | On another occasion, when MT. Swift
 MacNeill was telling the House now ne | had "chalked' the policeman who handled
 him roughly while attending some evic- tions in his constituency in Donegal SO l that he could recognize them afterward,
 more than one newspaper told how he
 had "choked" the policeman.
 Some years ago. when Lord Chancellor
 EIdon stated that, instead of receiving
 600 pounds a year as perquistes accru-
 ing from cases of bankruptcy, his income from that source did not exceed three | fourths of that sum. the reporter in his l haste used the contraction "3:4,' and
 one can well imagine the surprise of his | Lordship next morning when his paper soemnly assured him that he had de- clined an oath that his income from
 that particular source did not exceed l three ShillinRS and fourpence.
 These and many other instances of how
 various members of Parliament have been misquoted appear in MT. Michael Mac
 Donagh's recently published work, Par | liament: Its Roman1e, Its Comedy, Its | Pathos."
 In the old days of Parliamentary report
 ing the reporters offer played practical jokes on one another. One evening in
 1890 Peter Finnertys who had occupied the gallery all alone all the evening. assured his colleagues. who came In very late, that William Wilberforce had delivered
 an extraordinary speech on the virtues of
 theIrish potato.
 Next morning half London was amazed
 to read how the famous champion of the
 negro slave had said: Had 1t been my
 lot to be born in Ireland, where my food
 would have principally consisted of the
 potato, that most nutritious and salubri- | ous root instead of being the poor. infirm
 shriveled, stunted creature you, sir, an
 honorable gentleman now behold me.
 wound have been a tall stout, athletic
 man and able to carry an enormous