''random uecollections op the house of commons. 59 



as large an allowance of good judgment — in some instances, more — as 

 those members who have spent all their days in polished society, — yet 

 have lost much of their early literary acquirements. There is more than 

 one of these — and there arc several members who have chiefly spent 

 their time in rural retirement in the same predicament — who have for- 

 gotten the first rudiments of their orthography. I could mention several 

 amusing instances of such blunders committed by M. P.'s ; but let one 

 suffice. A worthy Welsh baronet, distinguished for his maritime ex- 

 ploits, was lately asked by one of his constituents, who chanced to be in 

 town at the time, for an order of admission into the house. With his 



characteristic disposition to oblige. Sir immediately complied 



with the request, and wrote an order in the usual terms, and addressed 

 it thus — "To the Door Ceeper of the House of Commons." The per- 

 son for whom it was intended, discovered the error in the spelling after 

 he had gone ten or twelve yards from the worthy baronet, and turning 



back and running up to him said, " Oh, sir there is a mistake in 



the word "keeper ;" you have spelt it with a c instead of a k." " A 

 mistake !" responded the baronet, taking the order into his hand. " Not 

 a bit of a mistake is there in it, both ways are right — quite right, my 

 friend," at the same time returning the order uncorrected to his con- 

 stituent. 



Those unacquainted with the secrets of the prison-house, would natu- 

 rally infer that those members of opposite politics whom they see night 

 after night so heartily abusing each other, were not on friendly terms 

 together. There are some cases in which the conclusion would be just : 

 in the great majority it would not. Before and after the dissolution of 

 Sir Robert Peel's government, the Right Honourable Baronet and Lord 

 John Russell were often seen in most friendly conversation together. 

 Some weeks after the meeting of the present Parliament, Mr. Hughes 

 Hughes, the member for Oxford, made a most violent attack on Mr. 

 O'Connell, pointedly referring, among other things, to his ordering 

 death's-heads and cross-bones to be painted over the doors of those 

 electors who would not vote for his nominee in the county of Cork. 

 Mr. O'Connell repelled the attack with equal violence, and retorted, as 

 he did to Mr. Shaw, the member for the University of Dublin, on ano- 

 ther occasion, that Mr. Hughes's head was a calf's-head. Some nights 

 afterwards both gentlemen were seen walking arm-in-arm up Parliament- 

 street, on their way home from the house." 



At page 72, we have a bit of " fun senatorial," in which Mr. O'Con- 

 nell and Mr. Shaw were the "principals." We then have a sketch of 

 one or more of the " general scenes," as follows : — • 



"I come now to what are called general scenes. One of the richest of 

 this kind which I have ever seen, occurred on the 17th of July last. 

 The question before the house was that the Municipal Corporations Bill 

 be re-committed. Several of the leading members having delivered 

 their sentiments on the subject, Mr. Hughes Hughes, the member for 

 Oxford, rose to address the House. This gentleman, for what reason I 

 am at a loss to guess, generally meets with a very unfavourable recep- 

 tion : on this occasion it exceeded any thing I ever before witnessed. 

 The moment he pronounced the word " Sir," addressing himself of 

 eourse to the Speaker, he was assailed with the most tremendous uproar 



