In the House of Commons the procedure of swearing-in members is somewhat different. The Speaker is the first to take the oath. As soon as he returns to the Chair, in the full garb of his office, he stands on the dais, and repeats the words of the oath after the Clerk. It is a very simple declaration, and is the same in both Houses: I, —— ——, swear by Almighty God that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to his Majesty King George, his heirs and successors, according to law. So help me, God. The Speaker then signs the Test Roll, which, differing in form from the Roll of Parliament in the Upper House, is a large book strongly bound in leather, with brass clasps, opening at the bottom instead of at the sides, and with a sheet of blotting-paper between every two leaves. A new Test Roll is provided for each new Parliament. After the Speaker, Members are sworn in in batches. To expedite matters, two tables are brought into the Chamber, and, being placed in line with the Clerk’s Table, are each supplied with copies of the New Testament and five large paste-boards, on which the oath is printed in bold type. At each table one of the clerks-assistant stands, and administers the oath to the Members, as they present themselves in groups of five, two or three holding between them a Testament, and each having in his left hand one of the oath-cards, the words of which they repeat, and then kiss the book. The first to take the oath and sign the roll after the Speaker are the Leader of the House and the Leader of the Opposition. Members of “his Majesty’s most honourable Privy Council,” and the Ministers, past and present, next have precedence, and take the oath separately from the other Members. In the Lords, as we have seen, each peer, before taking the oath and subscribing the Roll, gives the Clerk his writ of summons. But in the Commons no proof of identity—no evidence that they are duly elected M.P.’s—is required from the gentlemen that present themselves at the Table to take the oath and subscribe the Test Roll. It is true that the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery receives at his office at Westminster from the returning officer of every constituency what is called the return of the writ—that is, actually the writ of election, with the name of the elected representative certified on the back—and that the names of the Members, with the constituency each represents, are inscribed in a book, called the “Return Book,” which is delivered by the Clerk of the Crown to the Clerk of the House of Commons on the day the new Parliament opens.