Even this accommodation was regarded askance by the constitutional authorities of the House, still accustomed to regard the Press as an intruder happily subject, under the beneficent regulations of the Stuart days, to instant expulsion if any member pleased to take note of the presence of its representatives. In 1867, a Committee sat to consider the general arrangements of the House. The reporters, greatly daring, took the opportunity of laying before it a statement of their grievances, and asked for fuller convenience for carrying on their work. Lord Charles Russell, then Serjeant-at-Arms, was, very properly, astonished at their unreasonableness, and plaintively deplored the times when, as he put it, reporters seemed to require only the necessaries of life, not presuming to lift their eyes to its luxuries. "They used, I am told," Lord Charles added, "to have just a glass of water and biscuits, or anything of that sort. Now they have their tea at the back of the gallery." [Illustration: MR. DAVID PLUNKET.] Oliver Twist asking for more scarcely reached the height of the audacity of these reporters in 1867. Like Mr. Bumble, the Serjeant-at-Arms of the day literally gasped in dismayed astonishment. All this is changed. Thanks to the courtesy and reasonableness of successive First Commissioners of Works, of whom Mr. David Plunket was not the least forward in doing good, the arrangements in connection with the Press Gallery of to-day leave nothing to be desired. Of the changes that have taken place in the House itself, and of the ghosts that flit about the benches where twenty years ago they sat in flesh and bone, I shall have something to say next month. * * * * * [IMPORTANT NOTICE.--_Companion to the STRAND MAGAZINE. Now Selling. To be obtained of all Booksellers and Newsagents. THE PICTURE MAGAZINE, Price Sixpence, Monthly. This new publication, issued from the offices of "The Strand," contains nothing but pictures, and forms an Art Magazine for the General Public. Features:--Fine Art Portraits, Curious Pictures, Humorous Pictures, Pictures of Places, Pictures for Children, etc., etc._] _A Child's Tear._ [Illustration] THE DRAMATIST'S STORY. FROM THE FRENCH OF EDOUARD LEMOINE. In a Parisian green-room a new performer was complaining of nervousness. From some of her companions she received encouragement, but the majority expressed themselves after this fashion: "Such tremors are incurable. As nature has formed us, bold or timid, cold or ardent, grave or gay, so we must remain. Whoever saw an ambitious man cured of his ambition, or a miser of his avarice?" Some members of the company objected to the fatalism of these observations, and one said: "If you ask for a converted miser, I can show you one. Here he is! _I_ am one."