If the duties of the Speakership are arduous, its dignity is high and its emoluments handsome. In former times the Speaker was paid a salary of £5 a day, and a fee of £5 on every Private Bill. This fluctuating income was replaced by a fixed salary of £6,000 a year on the election of Henry Addington to the Chair in 1789. It was also decided at the same time that a sum of £1,000 equipment money was to be given to the Speaker on his first appointment. In the reign of William IV the salary was reduced to £5,000 to be paid, free of all taxes, out of the Consolidated Fund direct, without having to be voted every year by the House of Commons. At the same time an official secretary, with a salary of £500, was attached to the office. The Speaker also has a residence, furnished by the State and free of rent, rates and taxes, with coal and light supplied. The Speaker’s house is in that conspicuous wing of the Palace of Westminster, with its carved stonework and gothic windows, extending from the Clock Tower to the river. It was first occupied by John Evelyn Denison in 1857. Here the Speaker gives several official entertainments during session. There are dinners to the Ministers, to the leader Members of the Opposition, and to private Members. According to long-established custom, a Member who accepts an invitation to dine with Mr. Speaker is required to appear either in uniform or Court dress, ordinary evening dress being debarred. As a result, many eminent parliamentarians, such as William Cobbett, Joseph Hume, Richard Cobden, John Bright, Joseph Cowen, all sturdy democrats and Radicals, who could not bring themselves to wear Court dress, never had the pleasure of dining as guests of Mr. Speaker. The rule is still enforced. The only departure from it was made by Mr. Speaker Peel during the short Liberal Parliament of 1895, when he had a separate dinner party of the Labour Members of the House, and told them they might come in any dress they pleased. But that precedent, at least, has not once been followed at Westminster, though subsequent Speakers have in such cases given luncheons instead of dinners. The Speaker is attired at these dinners in a black velvet Court suit, knee-breeches with silk stockings, a steel-handled sword by his side, and lace ruffles round his neck and wrists. The table and huge sideboards in the oak-panelled rooms are spread with magnificent old plate, and the walls are hung with portraits of many famous “First Commoners.”