In the House of Lords, where there is no Speaker to curtail a lengthy or irrelevant speech, any peer may propose that the noble lord who is on his legs "be no longer heard"--a disagreeable but effective way of informing a bore of his prolixity.[250] This method was unsuccessfully tried in the Commons in 1880. O'Donnell had put down a question asking whether M. Challemel Lacour, the prospective French Ambassador at the Court of St. James's, had, "as one of the Prefects of the Provisional Government of September 4, 1870, ordered the massacre of Colonel Latour's battalion, and had been fined £3000 by a Court of Justice for plundering a convent." Gladstone moved that the honourable member "be no longer heard;" but the Speaker, on being appealed to, stated that this was an unusual course, which had certainly not been adopted for at least two hundred years. A "scene" ensued, and finally O'Donnell was induced to put down the question again for a later date. Before this day arrived, however, the Speaker tactfully managed to suppress the question altogether, as being "beyond the cognisance of the House or the Queen's Government." [250] The last instance of this occurred on May 6, 1884, when Lord Waveney was addressing the House. Occasional efforts have been made to stem the flow of parliamentary eloquence in the Commons, but without much success. The late Sir Carne Rasch tried for years to shorten speeches, but in vain. Mr. Hogan sought to introduce the New Zealand scheme, whereby the Speaker rings a bell when any member has spoken for twenty minutes; but though Mr. Balfour declared that twenty minutes erred on the side of generosity, nothing came of this suggestion. In spite of a good deal of unnecessary talking, the House of Commons gets through a lot of work, though there is no doubt that, as Bright said, more business could be done if so much time were not wasted in unprofitable eloquence.[251] Dr. Johnson, visiting a musical family of his acquaintance, suggested that they should all perform together. "There will then," he explained, "be more noise, but it will be sooner over." Similar suggestions have been made with regard to the House of Commons, but the question of stifling parliamentary loquacity remains unsolved. [251] "I must say that it (the House of Commons) would be a better machine if men were a little less vain, and would adopt a policy of silence. If they would be anxious to get through the business of the House without so much anxiety for self-exhibition as I have sometimes observed, I think the House of Commons might do a good deal more work, and very much better work than it does at present."--Speech at the Fishmongers' Hall, April 27, 1881.