In methods of procedure gross irregularities occurred as a result of carelessness or deliberate manipulation until the procedure occasionally became a mere travesty of the forms of government. Wiltz in the House charged that he was never notified to attend a single meeting of the Committee on the City Charter of which he was a member.[85] A bill was declared on third reading when the House had refused to engross it and had ordered it placed on the calendar. An interested member detected the irregularity.[86] A member of the Ways and Means Committee charged that the revenue bill had been returned when only two members had been present to act on it.[87] One striking offense was the extraordinary omnibus motion put and carried amid boisterous laughter late on the evening of February 23: “I move that the reading of the bill be dispensed with, the bill be put upon its first reading, the constitutional rule be suspended, the bill be put upon its second and third readings and final passage, the title adopted, and that the bill be sent to the Senate for concurrence.”[88] One member remonstrated at what he properly termed an “extraordinary proceeding.” “The Governor has sent in a veto of some bills, and in his message has given very grave reasons for so doing. Now, sir, I want to see the bills. I don’t know them at all. They were ordered to be printed this morning, and now the House desires to take up those bills, involving millions of dollars, without ever giving the members an opportunity to make themselves acquainted with their provisions.”[89] Another member was excused from voting on a bill, which he insisted on hearing read, only after the following declaration of independence: “I will throw myself back upon my reserved rights, and I will not vote, and the House may take, with all respect, the course they may think proper.”[90] Even the speaker acted on one occasion without knowing what the forms were carrying through, for, on the query of a member as to the nature of the bill under debate, he replied: “Something about taxes. The gentleman from Orleans moves it be referred to the Committee on Ways and Means.” It was so referred.[91] The powerful majority did not even manifest the ordinary courtesies of debate to the minority, but replied coldly to the very reasonable plea of the opposition for more time on an important bill: “It seems to be the disposition of the committee to work further.”[92] By dispensing with the reading of the bill and various other devices to gain time, bills were often crowded through to adoption at a single sitting.[93] Under the operation of the previous question, debate was peremptorily cut off until one member indignantly cried out: “It is impossible to sit here and see the funds of the State voted away without an opportunity to remonstrate against it.”[94]