It is generally said that a small body is more open to bribery and corruption than a large body; but, on the other hand, I have heard it asserted that the larger is more exposed than the smaller. I put this consideration aside. My objection to a large House is, that it is inconvenient for the despatch of public business. There is a famous saying of Cardinal de Retz, that every assembly of more than one hundred is a mob; and Lord Chesterfield applied the same term to the British House of Commons. At the present time that body has nominally six hundred and fifty-four members. It is called by Lord Brougham "preposterously large"; but a quorum for business is forty only; and it is only on rare occasions of political importance that its benches are completely occupied. The House of Lords, nominally, has four hundred and fifty-nine members; but a quorum in this body consists of three only;[24] and much of its business is transacted in a very thin attendance. [24] According to the old rule, _Tres faciunt collegium._ The experience of Congress, as also of other States, points to a reduction of our present number. Indeed, for many years this was a general desire through the State. In the earliest Colonial days every town was allowed three deputies; but in five years the number, on reaching thirty-three, was reduced to two for each.[25] At a later day, in 1694, a great contest in the House was decided by a vote of twenty-six against twenty-four.[26] In the agitating period between 1762 and 1773, covering the controversies which heralded the Revolution, the House consisted, on an average, of one hundred and twenty members; and only on one occasion the magnitude of the interest is reported by Hutchinson to have drawn together so many as one hundred and thirteen. At the last session of the Provincial Legislature, in May, 1774, when the Revolutionary conflict was at hand, the complete returns of the Journal show one hundred and forty. In 1776 there was a House of three hundred and five; but this "enormous and very unwieldy size," according to the language of the time, was assigned as a reason for a new Constitution. I regret that we cannot profit by this experience. A House of two hundred and fifty, or, since we are accustomed to large congregations,[27] of three hundred at most, would be an improvement on the present system. [25] Records of the Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay, Vol. I. pp. 118, 250, 254. [26] Hutchinson, History of Massachusetts, Vol. II. p. 77.