At first we hardly know what we see. Chaos seems come again. On the opposition benches Lord Stanley is seated; on the ministerial the genteel Sir John Shelley is visible at one end, and the stout W. J. Fox at the other. All is confusion and disorder. No one but the Speaker seems to know what he is about. It is the hour devoted to private business, and Mr. Forster is bringing up bills like a retriever. He hands his bills to the clerks, while the Speaker, to an inattentive house, runs over their titles, and declares that they are read a first, or second, or third time, as the case may be. Then we hear him announce the name of some honourable M.P., who immediately rises and reads a statement of the petition he holds in his hand, with which he immediately rushes down and delivers it to one of the clerks, and which thereupon the Speaker declares is ordered to lie upon the table—but literally the petition is popped into a bag. In the meanwhile let us look around. Just below us is a small gallery for peers and ambassadors, and other distinguished personages. On either side of the house are galleries, very pleasant to sit, or lie, or occasionally sleep in, and by-and-bye we shall see in them old fogies very red in the face, talking over the last bit of scandal, and young moustached lords or officers, sleeping away the time, to be ready, when the House breaks up, for “Fresh fields and pastures new.” Opposite to us is the Reporters’ Gallery. In the early days of parliament reporting was a thing much condemned. Sir Simonds d’Ewes, under the date March 5, 1641–2, gives us a special instance of this. Sir Edward Alford, member for Arundel, had been observed taking notes of a proposed declaration moved by Pym. Sir Walter Earle, member for Weymouth, upon this objected that he had seen “some at the lower end comparing their notes, and one of them had gone out.” Alford having been called back, and given up his notes to the Speaker, D’Ewes then continues:—“Sir Henry Vane, senior, sitting at that time next me, said he could remember when no man was allowed to take notes, and wished it to be now forbidden.” At present the gentlemen of the Press are taking it easy, and favouring each other with criticisms on the speakers by no means flattering. In a little while they will have to suspend their criticism and work hard enough. Above them are gilt wires, behind which we perceive the glare of silks and satins, and faintly—for otherwise attention would be drawn from the speakers below to the ladies above—but still clearly enough to make us believe— “That we can almost think we gaze Through golden vistas into heaven,”