“Privilege, Privilege!” raised by Members were the presage of civil war. St. Stephen’s Hall fittingly contains statues of twelve of the greatest and wisest statesmen whose voices so often rang through the old House of Commons. The statesmen thus honoured are Selden, Hampden, Falkland, Clarendon, Somers, Walpole, Chatham, Mansfield, Burke, Fox, Pitt and Grattan; and the selection was made by the historians Macaulay and Hallam. Beneath St. Stephen’s Hall is the old crypt of St. Stephen’s Chapel. Like the Chapel, it was originally used for religious services. For centuries after the Reformation it was used as a place for shooting rubbish. About a quarter of a century before the fire of 1834 it was converted into a dining-room in which the dinners given by the Speaker to Members took place. After the fire the crypt was restored to its original purpose, and for a time was a place of worship for the numerous residents within the area of the Palace of Westminster. It is the most beautiful place in the Palace, with its altar, inlaid marble floor, walls of mosaic and groined ceiling. It is also a place of solitude and silence. Not for years has it been used as a place of worship. The only sound to which it now re-echoes is the cry of the infant as the water of baptism is poured on its head. One of the few privileges of an M.P. is that a child born to him may be christened in St. Stephen’s Crypt. A new Member is not many hours in the Palace of Westminster before he has secured the special peg for his hat and overcoat in the beautiful cloisters of old St. Stephen’s, which has been turned into a cloak-room for the Commons; obtained one of the long rows of lockers, or presses, in the corridors, immediately surrounding the Chamber, to which each Member is entitled, for storing books and papers; enjoyed a pipe or cigar in the smoking-room; had a meal in one of the several dining-rooms; read the newspapers in the news-room, or made himself acquainted with some of the contents of the extensive Library; strolled on the Terrace; had tea in the tea-room, and dispatched numbers of letters on the official stationery of the House to relatives and friends giving his first impressions of the scene where glory or obscurity awaits him as a representative of the people. 6 One of the most pleasant adjuncts of the House of Commons is the large and lofty suite of rooms overlooking the Thames, which is devoted to the Library. But there is more in these apartments than books. They also contain some rare and most interesting historical relics, parliamentary and political. Here in a glass case is shown a manuscript volume, stained and mouldered, of the old Journals of the House of Commons. The writing on the pages that are open is not easily decipherable. But it is well worth while endeavouring to peruse it, for it is the official chronicle of the raid of Charles I on the House of Commons. The shaky handwriting tells of the agitation of the Clerk when he made the record.