As we look up at the Clock Tower, it suggests some curious recollections--first, associated with the “Big Ben” within, which has its history. Few may recollect that it was so named after Sir Benjamin Hall, then Commissioner of Works. Unnoticed too, perhaps, by the incurious is the fact that “Big Ben” has long been cracked, but has done his work effectively for years. Yet the hoarse, rather jarring tone betrays this damage hourly. Forgotten also that it was designed by a bell amateur, Mr. Becket Denison, and that there was a controversy and discussion which long raged fiercely about the bell. It could not be even settled what note it uttered. It is astonishing to think that the large hand of the clock is over fourteen feet long. From the elaborate open-work character of the “cap,” or head, of the clock-tower, as well as from its function of holding a number of bells large and small, for which there is no room save in the body of the tower itself, it was intended that the whole should be pierced, and have an airy, open treatment like a church spire. This was actually the architect’s design, as will be seen from the slits that run all the way up. These, however, he was forced to “glaze,” and fill in with windows, which gives the whole a heavy, clumsy air, instead of a lightness and elegance. The system of lighting the dials is elaborate, and the cost enormous. There is quite a fire-chamber behind. Offenders against Parliamentary discipline have been consigned to the Clock Tower for custody; and, as may be imagined, the chief portion of their sufferings, night and day, must have been the alarming booming of the bells, which were quite close to their ears.