Reprobate and scoundrel that he proved to be, Speaker Carr[76] had a certain power of command, which made it possible for him to control the House. Whenever he called anyone else to the chair, the House broke into disorder like a set of unruly schoolboys, leaving him problems to disentangle on his return. Legislators indulged in pranks such as withdrawing a member’s chair while he was speaking in order that his fall should convulse the House.[77] So notorious was the disorder that one member acknowledged as a well-known fact that gentlemen came from the North to see what kind of a House they had. The speaker found it difficult to hear the motions, while over and over again the reporter inserted in the debates “confusion” and a statement to the effect that, owing to the disorder, he had lost part of the speech. The pages, who made as much noise “as a lot of young colts, dodging about the floor, standing up, talking and laughing all the time,” according to the speaker, added to the disturbance.[78] It would be difficult to read the pages that record the proceedings on the 30th of January, 1869, without feeling convinced that the open bar, which it was charged was to be found at the capitol, had had its due effect.[79] The last evening closed fittingly with a mock session, when, as the debates assure us, “the members had a good time, and the reign of fun prevailed for a few minutes.”[80] Low as was the tone during the second session of the Assembly, it degenerated even lower by the time the Assembly gathered for the third time. Debate descended more often to vulgarity[81] and bad grammar and rhetoric came to the surface more often.[82] Mr. President, I have not expressed on none of these bills termed political bills, but, as the gentleman who preceded me from Orleans has not entirely represented me, I claim on this floor the privilege. In the first place, he says we have elected a demagogue,--or some such word.... I say on the other hand, if the way that he holds to that he has done what he proposes that he should have done, it is because the Democratic members on this floor, when some bills were introduced in this House, opposed them bills, and they did not become laws.... I do not know what done it, except it was their own classes--except it was someone that stood in the ranks in the days of old.[83] It was of a legislature which assembled only a year later that Eustis told his famous story: “There was a member of Parliament brought me a letter of introduction, and he asked me if I had any great curiosity to show him. I told him I had--such a curiosity as he would never see in any other civilized country, and I took him to the legislature.”[84]