are no desks and the member who wishes to read, write, or otherwise occupy himself seeks the library or other rooms adjoining. The front bench at the upper end of the aisle, at the right of the Speaker, is known as the Treasury Bench and is reserved for members of the Government. The corresponding bench at the Speaker's left is reserved similarly for the leaders of the Opposition. In so far as is possible in the lack of a definite assignment of seats, members of avowed party allegiance range themselves behind their leaders, while members of more independent attitude seek places below the gangway. "The accident that the House of Commons sits in a narrow room with benches facing each other, and not, like most continental legislatures, in a (p. 120) semi-circular space, with seats arranged like those of a theatre, makes for the two-party system and against groups shading into each other."[170] [Footnote 169: Lowell, Government of England, I., 249. Visitors, technically "strangers," are present only on sufferance and may be excluded at any time; but the ladies' gallery is not supposed to be within the chamber, so that an order of exclusion does not reach the occupants of it. In the autumn of 1908, however, the disorderly conduct of persons in the ladies' and strangers' galleries caused the Speaker to close these galleries during the remainder of the session. In 1738 the House declared the publication of its proceedings "a high indignity and a notorious breach of privilege," and, technically, such publication is still illegal. In 1771, however, the reporters' gallery was fitted up, and through a century and a quarter the proceedings have been reported and printed as a matter of course. On the status of the public and the press in the chamber see Ilbert, Parliament, Chap. 8; Redlich, Procedure of the House of Commons; II., 28-38; MacDonaugh, The Book of Parliament, 310-329, 350-365; and H. Graham, The Mother of Parliaments, 259-287.] [Footnote 170: Ilbert, Parliament, 124. The chamber is described fully in Wright and Smith, Parliament, Past and Present, Chap. 19.]