Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1922-01-28

M records of the proceedings Of the
w great legislative bodies of the world
have been properly kept and preserved Tor a
relatively short period For many centuries
the British parliament rigidly excluded any
one corresponding in the remotest way to the
modern newspaperman, and even sucn
chroniclers as would correspond to the pres
ent day official reporters of debates. Samuel
H. Gray, one of the official stenographic re-
porters of the House of Representatives, has
spent several days going into the whole
history of legislative reporting, with the re-
suit that remarkably interesting and ac-
curate historical account has been produced.
Samuel Johnson, who came to London to
do any kind of nack writing that would in
sure him living, was the first real reporter
of the proceedings of the British parliament,
and he had to do it in a roundabout way to
avoid the legal consequences OF publishing
anything that occurred in Parliament.
In those days Edward Cave was the pro-
prietor of THE Gentlemans Magazine and
because of official position he enjoyed,
was privileged to hear the proceedings of
Parliament. From the notes he made and
from memory he would sketch to Johnson
what had occurred, and Johnson would not
merely outline it, but write out lengthy de-
bates the language Of which was his own,
but the action portrayed being painstakingly
correct
In order to dodge the legal consequences,
these debates appeared oftenest when parlia-
ment was not in session. Also, as a further
safeguard, the accounts of the debates were
headed "Parliament OF he Empire of Lilli-
put" The names of the speakers were skele-
tonzed or slightly changed, but an intelIi-
gent reader could place accurately each
speaker. johnson did not particularly relish
this job and told Boswell few weeks be-
fore his death that it was the only thing in
his writings of which he was ashamed.
Reporting from Memory
Two remarkable men named Woodfall and
! d doll no c11on To TOh "
this time enforcement of the rules of the
House of Commons had been so relaxed that
people were admitted to the gallery, but no
notations could be made. WOodfall, without
| taking single note, would write at the con-
clusion of each session as much as Is news
paper columns of the debates, and sell this
to the afternoon newspapers published the
next day. Radcliffe performed even more re-
markedly. When the days session ended, he
would post himself between two compositors,
and from memory keep up a running fire of
dictation of two different portions of the
proceedings to the two men as fast as they
could set the type.
Two Englishmen, named Gray and Perry,
then purchased the Morning Chronicle"
and in order to get The proceedings OF the
parliament for their paper, invented the re-
y system Of reporters. This system is fol-
lowed, in highly perfected manner, to this
very day in every legislative body OF conse-
quence. One of the men employed as re-
before he set all England laughing with MT
Dckwell and Sam Weller.
Dickens had worked in similar capacity
on a sheet called 1.-The Mirror of Parliament"
before the purchase of the Morning
Chronicle by Perry and Gray.
Even now the House of Commons is not
entirely reconciled to it's official reporters.
They are stationed in small sort of a gal
lery, not having the privilege of the floor,
"a in our Senate and House of Representa-
tives AS result much of the actual word
ing of speeches is lost, and much of the rec
ord of the British Parliament is written in
the third person that account. The news
papers have corps of stenographic report
newspaper corps check their records one
with the other.
There exists among the parliamentary
rules governing the British Parliament pro-
vision that any member call the atten-
ton of the Speaker to the fact that there are
strangers in the gallery" and the Speaker
then must order the strangers removed. This
would clear the gallery of all newspapermen.
OF course, the rule has been allowed to be-
come a dead letter and is preserved more as
curiosity than anything else. Should any
member ever bring this question up, Parlia-
ment beyond doubt would quickly nullify the
ancient law.
Older Records not Authentic
From diaries, memoirs, and personal pa
pers of old-time members, it has been posi-
BILE to compile a more or less fragmentary
record of the proceedings of Parliament all
the way back to the Norman conquest of
England in 1856 Some historians have TAX
en- these records as authentic and frst-hand,