When the House is in committee it is not the custom for the Speaker to be present. When the House is in open session, then the Speaker is arrayed in wig and gown, and he sits far back in the recesses of his chair, like some dried-up mummy, so closely is he swathed and covered. It is pretty hard work for a member to actually catch his eye, being so muffled up as to defy recognition by a casual observer. Yet it is a part and parcel of the British Constitution, that this Right Honorable John Evelyn Dennison should be smothered in this huge box and gown and wig on a warm August night like this. During committee proceedings the Speaker may walk out, doff his wig and gown, and dine as he has done to-night, and then come back, and finding the House still in committee, he will seat himself in his chair without his legal vesture. I have been in this House four nights, and this is the first time that I have seen the Speaker's legs--palpably. He lolls back without any of that reverence that I have heard so much of, as belonging to the Commons, and he has at last gone to sleep, like Mr. Greeley under Dr. Chapin's sermons. In the meantime, the bill, which has twenty-five clauses or sections, is being canvassed and considered by the members who stream in, now that the dinner hour has passed. While the Speaker slumbers in a quiet way, the chief and assistant clerks of the House conduct the business, the assistant taking up the bill, and repeating as he reads each clause in detail: "It is moved," or "it is proposed that a substitute," or that the "word ---- instead of ----," and so on, in soporific tones, for two long hours. A number of people in the gallery are gently dozing, and visibly many of the messengers are relapsing into a blissful repose. The Speaker's table is covered with reports, large bound and gilt volumes, books of reference, pamphlets, newspapers, costly ink-horns, and other clerical paraphernalia of the state service. The huge gilded mace of the Speaker, which lies on the further end of the table below his chair, when the House is not in committee, is now pendant under the table on a rack, to show that it is not an open session for the introduction of new measures or for the making of set speeches. [Illustration: THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE.]