114 ANNUAL REGISTER, 1610. 



to tlie members of both houses. 

 Nay, it may be presumed, that it 

 excites chagrin and disgust in 

 most of the speakers on most occa- 

 sions. For a speech must be re- 

 ported with great accuracy, and at 

 great length indeed, if it meet 

 with the foil approbation of the 

 author. But when to the extreme 

 haste and hurry of writing, and 

 llie want of taste and judgment in 

 some instances in the reporters, is 

 added deliberate slight,or injustice, 

 nay, and misrepresentation, the in- 

 Jtjuitous report becomes really an 

 intolerable grievance. The atten- 

 tion of the House of Commons 

 was called to this subject by Mr. 

 Wallace, on the 16th of April. 

 The way, he said, in which the 

 speeches of some of its members 

 were reported, was a direct breach 

 of its privileges. He did not wish 

 to object to the practice of report- 

 ing, nor was it his intention to 

 follow up what he should now say 

 with any motion. He only wished 

 to awaken the House to the situa- 

 tion in which, in consequence of 

 the indulgence of admitting stran- 

 gers to hearand report thedebates, 

 it now stood. He purticulaily 

 Aieant to allude to a speech of sir 

 J. Anstruther's, a short time ago, 

 which had appeared in a morning 

 paper, in such a manner as to 

 throw ridicule on the speaker, be- 

 ing accompanied with annotations, 

 and some parts of it printed in a 

 different character, so as evidently 

 to betray the intention of the re- 

 porter. He had also remarked, 

 that the speeches of some of the 

 most disiinguished members of 

 that House weie tot allysuppressed; 

 and that, where anv allusion was 



afterwards made to the arguments 

 or observations of those members, 

 such allusions were also omitted. 

 In this manner did the proceedings 

 of that House go before the public 

 in a mutilated and partial form. 

 If the debates were to be reported 

 at all, they ought to be reported 

 fairly. By a contrary practice, the 

 most destructive system of misi'«- 

 presentation might be introduced. 

 He felt it to be his imperious duty 

 to call on the House to resort to 

 the measures which might seem 

 necessary on the occasion, if what 

 he had now stated was not taken 

 as a sufficient warning. 



Mr. Wortley hoped that some 

 paper would set the example of 

 reporting fairly. Here the con- 

 versation dropped. 



In the hall where the national 

 assemblies of France, the consti- 

 tuent, the legislative, and the con- 

 ventional, held their sittings, there 

 was a small gallery appointed for 

 a corps of short-hand writers,* 

 whose reports, thus in a manner 

 authenticated, possessed nearly the 

 authority of public records. This, 

 which was in fact an appeal to the 

 people, was congruous enough to 

 a democracy. But were it adopted 

 by the British legislature, it is pro- 

 bable that the political constitution 

 actually existing, would soon suffer 

 very considerable derangement. 

 A kind of fourth power thus re- 

 cognized would be introduced into 

 the State. If all the speeches, too, 

 were faithfully recorded by the 

 bench of tachygraphes, the reports 

 would become so immeasurably 

 voluminous, that they could not 

 be circulated, as now, in news- 

 papers, through which v«bicl€t- 



• Tachygraphes. 



