"House of Commons" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Everybody knows which side Mr. Bright took, and how judicious and far-sighted he was in taking it. But everybody should remember also how, when Mr. Bright pointed out the consequences likely to ensue from the cruise of the Alabama, he was insulted by Mr. Laird in the House of Commons; the Mr. Laird who launched the Alabama, who has been the means of creating bitter enmity between the people of this country and of the United States, and has contrived to invest the unlawful speculation of a shipbuilder with the dignity ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... execution as law. In England, as every one knows, the impediment was a ruling caste highly skilled in the governmental function and generally trusted by a majority of the populace—a ruling caste firmly intrenched in the House of Lords and scarcely less powerful in the House of Commons. In France it was a bureaucracy so securely protected by law and custom that nothing short of a political cataclysm could shake it. In Germany and Italy it was an aristocracy buttressed by laws cunningly designed to nullify the numerical superiority ...
— The American Credo - A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind • George Jean Nathan
... announced that the British forces at Anzac and Suvla Bay had been withdrawn, and that only the minor positions near Sedd-el-Bahr were occupied. Great Britain's loss of officers and men at the Dardanelles up to December 11th was 112,921, according to an announcement made in the House of Commons by the Parliamentary Under Secretary for War. Besides these casualties the number of sick admitted to hospitals was 96,683. The decision to evacuate Gallipoli was made in the course of November by the British Government as the result of ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... inquiry as to the antiquity of this dance, it may interest him as well as others of the readers of "NOTES AND QUERIES" to know, that when Walpole made up his mind to abandon his Excise bill (which met with a still fiercer opposition out of doors than in the House of Commons), he signified his intention to a party of his adherents at the supper-table, by quoting the first ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 76, April 12, 1851 • Various
... Danes; the betters from the upper end of the hall, but every man as he chose. They were in full Thing; in parliament, as their forefathers had been wont to be for countless ages. Their House of Lords and their House of Commons were not yet defined from each other: but they knew the rules of the house, the courtesies of debate; and, by practice of free speech, had educated themselves to bear and forbear, ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... is more extensively and mischievously employed than in the case of the word representative: assuming that its right meaning must correspond exactly with the strict and original sense of the verb 'represent,' the sophist persuades the multitude that a member of the House of Commons is bound to be guided in all points by the opinion of his constituents; and, in short, to be merely their spokesman; whereas law and custom, which in this case may be considered as fixing the meaning of the term, require no such thing, but enjoin the ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... me to Lieutenant-Commander KENWORTHY, the new Member for Central Hull, whose latest idea is that before British troops are sent to any new front the approval of the House of Commons should be obtained. I suspect that if, during his active-service days, some Member had proposed a similar restriction on the movements of the Fleet the comments of the gallant Commander himself would have ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 28, 1919. • Various
... that this rejection was in 1895 ratified by the approval of the electorate of the United Kingdom A Leap in the Dark will assuredly remind my readers that in 1893 the hereditary House of Lords, and not the newly elected House of Commons, truly represented the will of the nation. This is a fact never to be forgotten. It is of special import at the present moment. Another equally undoubted fact deserves attention. Home Rulers themselves despair of carrying a Home Rule Bill until they shall have turned the ...
— A Leap in the Dark - A Criticism of the Principles of Home Rule as Illustrated by the - Bill of 1893 • A.V. Dicey
... very different view of the convenience of tramway cars. This wasn't pleasant; but when the Division bell rang, TAY PAY had the satisfaction of walking, alone amongst his Party, with the Gentlemen of England, triumphantly vindicating the rights of carriage-folk against tramway trabs. Long time since House of Commons witnessed a scene so rich as this in material for reflection. Business done.—TAY PAY declares ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 16, 1891 • Various
... sketch of my course under Flinders range, and that a rough one, which I furnished to the Colonial Government, was sent from Port Lincoln, and is the same which was subsequently published with other papers, relative to South Australia, for the House of Commons, in 1843. This sketch was put together hastily for his Excellency the Governor, that I might not lose the opportunity of forwarding it when I sent from Port Lincoln to Adelaide for supplies early in October, ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... with great personal defects have made a considerable figure as public speakers; and Mr. Wilberforce, among others, may be held out as an instance. Nothing can be more insignificant as to mere outward appearance, and yet he is listened to in the House of Commons. But he does not wield it, he does not insult or bully it. He leads by following opinion, he trims, he shifts, he glides on the silvery sounds of his undulating, flexible, cautiously modulated voice, winding his way betwixt heaven and earth, now courting popularity, now calling servility ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... is a Grecian temple built about 1765 by the then Bishop of Durham, Dr. Trevor, and here the Bishop was buried. There are few more charming groups of cottages in Sussex than this beautiful village. Glynde Place, the seat of a former Speaker of the House of Commons, boasts the largest dairy in Sussex if not in England; between 700 and 800 pounds of butter are made here daily. John Ellman, the famous breeder of Southdown sheep lived here for nearly fifty ...
— Seaward Sussex - The South Downs from End to End • Edric Holmes
... into "old style" of House of Commons debate, not only frankly accepted explanation but chivalrously took upon himself blame of the outbreak, which he said "apparently arose from an unfortunate expression of mine." Ended with pretty turn of grave satire ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, May 20, 1914 • Various
... Plympton St. Mary, the 1886 elections were held, and my relative being in politics a conservative, took an active part in the return of Sir John Kennaway (who died a few years ago, father of the House of Commons). Mr. Newbery was chairman of many of his meetings at which I attended. A polling booth was at the school house at Plympton, and on the day of the poll, I was much amused to see gentlemen's carriages being driven to the poll with the coachmen ...
— Reminiscences of Queensland - 1862-1869 • William Henry Corfield
... men mentioned in a previous chapter, has other claims to notice than that of being the only survivor of an ancient outdoor industry. He has given evidence before more than one committee of the House of Commons on the state of the river and the condition of its waters, and is the oldest salesman in that curious survival of antiquity, the free eel market held at Blackfriars Stairs on Sunday mornings; and, in addition, he has added to his original industry another ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish
... often that other intending critics got little chance. Counting speeches and interruptions, I find from the official reports that he addressed the House exactly one hundred times; and it is therefore worth noticing that his last words were, "This is what you call muzzling the House of Commons." ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov 21, 1917 • Various
... cried Nancy, her eyes sparkling. "I should love you to go into Parliament—love to hear you speak in the House of Commons. Why, you might be elected for St. Ia! Dad has at great deal of influence there too, and could get you nominated. But what ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking
... says Dr. Johnson, overflowed with Whiggish principles, was ordered to be burnt by the House of Commons. This moved Steele to diffuse it by inserting it in the Spectator, which, as its author said in a letter to Burnet, conveyed about fourteen thousand copies of the condemned preface into people's hands ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... see how any revision could obtain legal sanction, even if prepared by Convocation, save by an Act of Parliament after free discussion by the present House of Commons. ...
— The Church: Her Books and Her Sacraments • E. E. Holmes
... and corrupt administration at length defeated in the House of Commons, after repeated and protracted ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... young wife, and early infractions of the treaty of marriage; the dismissal of all the queen's French servants, hostilities between the merchant navies of the two nations, had for some time been paving the way for open war, when the Duke of Buckingham, in the hope of winning back to him the House of Commons (June, 1626), madly attempted the expedition against the Island of Re. What was the success of it, as well as of the two attempts that followed it, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... Meredith. "If we had more statesmen after Mr. Pauncefote's pattern, the House of Commons ...
— Patty's Friends • Carolyn Wells
... treated with the most barbarous cruelty. A bruise or a blow may be brutal and severe, yet neither is so hurtful, so systematically cruel, as the forcing young girls to stand erect for lengthened periods, without change of posture. I am sure if the members of the House of Commons were deprived of their seats even for one session, we would, without further ado have a Bill enacted making it criminal for shopkeepers to make slaves of their employees, or individuals to patronize ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer
... "the terrible news from Long Island." Wraxall says that the celebrated buff and blue colours of the Whig party were adopted by Fox in imitation of the Continental uniform; but his unsupported statement is open to question. It is certain, however, that in the House of Commons the Whigs habitually alluded to Washington's army as "our army," and to the American cause as "the cause of liberty;" and Burke, with characteristic vehemence, declared that he would rather be a prisoner in the Tower with Mr. Laurens than enjoy the ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... satisfaction with respect to the flag, or "any other matter they had not already ordered according to his wishes." This communication, received with feelings of extreme irritation by the court, had all the effect intended on the House of Commons. It was in vain that the King complained of the personal insults offered him by the Dutch; in vain that the chancellor expatiated on their obstinacy, arrogance, and enmity to the English; and that the court party remonstrated against ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... keep the cable tied up, when there is such important news to be sent. But the instructions are, 'Send no messages to the United States.' I'm sending an unimportant House of Commons speech." ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... or displeased with the sovereign, they have no difficulty in dispatching him. The twisting of a sash round the neck in Russia, the bowstring in Constantinople or Ispahan, are very effectual monitors—fully as much so as a hostile Parliamentary majority in the house of Commons or Chamber of Deputies. In a word, government in every country being conducted by the few over the many by the hundreds over the hundred thousands, it is altogether impossible that the administration or institutions ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... Atkinson's case) to tolerate modern literature, while discouraging the study of the ancient. Both seem to commit the error of drawing their examples of abuse from England, and applying their warnings to America.... Because the House of Commons was once said to care more for a false quantity in Latin verse than in English morals, shall we visit equal indignation on a House of Representatives that had to send for a classical dictionary to find out who ...
— A Handbook for Latin Clubs • Various
... my companions, who in the confusion and comparative insanity of a General Election had somehow become a member of Parliament, and I drove with him in a cab from the corner of Leicester-square to the members' entrance of the House of Commons, where the police received me with a quite unusual tolerance. Whether they thought that he was my keeper or that I was his keeper is a discussion between ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... the luxurious laziness of Pall Mall, where superannuated soldiers dozed in front of their dusty pigeon-holes after apoplectic lunches, and exercised their wits chiefly in framing evasive answers suited to the intelligence of the House of Commons. ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward
... world, even our faith." He was a man of faith, a man of prayer, a devout student of the Word of God; and though he was in the world, and took far more than his share of the ordinary duties of life, he was not of the world. Mr. Gladstone was right when he said from his seat in the House of Commons, "Such examples are fruitful in the future, and I trust that there will grow from the contemplation of that character and those deeds other men who in future time may emulate his noble and most Christian example." Gordon must ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... resides chiefly with the Commons. Representation here is arranged according to the population and must be readjusted after every census. "Rep. by Pop." was the rallying cry that effected this arrangement. No property qualification is required from the member of the House of Commons, but he must be a British subject. He must not have been convicted of any crime, minor ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... neighbouring seas. It is this unfortunate precedent which is paralysing all the natural elasticity of commercial enterprise in Cyprus, as the inhabitants and English alike feel their insecurity, and hesitate before the uncertain future, which may depend upon a party vote in the distant House of Commons. ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... Alkmaar. Unfortunate mistake of a Spanish prisoner. 31. Conditions that tended to vivify the belief during Elizabethan era. 32. The new freedom. Want of rules of evidence. Arthur Hacket and his madnesses. Sneezing. Cock-crowing. Jackdaw in the House of Commons. Russell and Drake both mistaken for devils. 33. Credulousness of people. "To make one danse naked." A parson's proof of transubstantiation. 34. But the Elizabethans had strong common sense nevertheless. People do wrong if they set them down as fools. If we had not learned to ...
— Elizabethan Demonology • Thomas Alfred Spalding
... a fanatic who would be hissed to-day in the House of Commons, if he uttered there one single one of the unintelligible absurdities which he gave out with so much confidence before other fanatics who listened to him open-mouthed and wide-eyed, in the name of the Lord. If he said that one must seek the Lord, and fight the Lord's battles; if he introduced the ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... journalism the fourth estate. That was true at the time, no doubt. But at the present moment it really is the only estate. It has eaten up the other three. The Lords Temporal say nothing, the Lords Spiritual have nothing to say, and the House of Commons has nothing to say and says it. We are dominated by Journalism. In America the President reigns for four years, and Journalism governs for ever and ever. Fortunately in America Journalism has carried its authority to the grossest and most brutal extreme. As a natural consequence ...
— The Soul of Man • Oscar Wilde
... the metropolis, Mr. Franklin had, it appeared, gone straight to his father's residence. He arrived at an awkward time. Mr. Blake, the elder, was up to his eyes in the business of the House of Commons, and was amusing himself at home that night with the favourite parliamentary plaything which they call "a private bill." Mr. Jeffco himself showed Mr. Franklin into his father's study. "My dear Franklin! why do you surprise me in this way? Anything wrong?" "Yes; something wrong with ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... that I remember two good-natured colleagues, who chanced to be at leisure, held a pocket-handkerchief over my note-book, after the manner of a State canopy in an ecclesiastical procession. I have worn my knees by writing on them on the old back row of the old gallery in the old House of Commons; and I have worn my feet by standing to write in a preposterous pen in the old House of Lords, where we used to be huddled together like so many sheep, kept in waiting, say, until the woolsack might want re-stuffing. Returning home from excited ...
— Life of Charles Dickens • Frank Marzials
... is found in Shea's translation of Charlevoix's History of New France. This was taken from the portrait of Champlain, which, with that of Cartier, Montcalm, Wolfe, and others, adorns the walls of the reception room of the Speaker of the House of Commons, in the Parliament House at Ottawa, in Canada, which was painted by Thomas Hamel, from a copy of Moncornet's engraving obtained in France by the late M. Faribault. From the costume and general features, it appears to be after the same as that contained in ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... Fox had been faithful to King Charles II. during his exile, and at the Restoration he received the reward of his services. He sat in the House of Commons from then until his death, twice representing Westminster. He was made Paymaster-General of the Forces and one of the Lords of the Treasury. He seems to have been an active-minded man, with considerable business propensity. He devised a scheme for paying the ...
— Chelsea - The Fascination of London • G. E. (Geraldine Edith) Mitton
... dress, but not more. There are several Catholic priests in their long black gowns, and with crucifixes hanging from their necks. No member wears his hat. One may see by these details that the aspects are not those of an evening sitting of an English House of Commons, but rather those of a sitting of our ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... of Chakdara was received with feelings of profound thankfulness throughout India. And in England, in the House of Commons, when the Secretary of State read out the telegram, there were few among the members who did not join in the cheers. Nor need we pay ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... Sacheverell affair engendered, would have been sufficient to sweep the Whigs from power. Together, and combined as they were with the prestige of the Queen's public support of Harley and the newly appointed Tory Ministers, these issues were irresistible. Harley found himself with an "immoderate" House of Commons. The Tories held 320 seats, the Whigs only 150, and there were 40 seats whose votes were "doubtful."[2] Many of the new Parliamentarians were High-Church zealots, and most were anxious to turn ...
— Atalantis Major • Daniel Defoe
... my lot to listen to an eminent leader of that distinguished member (with the distinguished member's tacit consent) pressing upon an astonished House of Commons the need of yielding to the clamour of the anti-vaccinationists, and of inserting into the Bill, framed upon the report of a Royal Commission, a clause forbidding the prosecution of parents or guardians willing to assert before a bench of magistrates that ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard
... wrong way, harnessed to the wrong machine. You have become accustomed to the idea that you want, or ought to want, certain valueless things, certain specific positions. For years your treasure has been in the Stock Exchange, or the House of Commons, or the Salon, or the reviews that "really count" (if they still exist), or the drawing-rooms of Mayfair; and thither your heart perpetually tends to stray. Habit has you in its chains. You are not free. The awakening, then, of your deeper self, which ...
— Practical Mysticism - A Little Book for Normal People • Evelyn Underhill
... professions, and his personal charm, you will often find him an amiable, upright, humane, anxiously truthful man. If you judge him, as a foreigner must, solely on the official acts for which he is responsible, and which he has to defend in the House of Commons for the sake of his party, you will often be driven to conclude that this estimable gentleman is, in point of being an unscrupulous superprig and fool, worse than Caesar Borgia and General Von Bernhardi rolled into one, ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... as a means of allaying the present discontent in the American colonies was advocated in the House of Commons to-day by Mr. Edmund Burke. He proposed that Parliament abandon the idea of taxing the colonies, and instead place on the statute book an act acknowledging that the various colonial legislative bodies have the power ...
— Practical English Composition: Book II. - For the Second Year of the High School • Edwin L. Miller
... 'lady's book' upon the Coast, pointed out at the beginning that sickness was due quite as much to want of care as to the climate. In 1830 Mr. John Cormack, merchant and resident since 1800, stated to a Committee of the House of Commons that out of twenty-six Europeans in his service seven had died, seven had remained in Africa, and of twelve who returned to England all save two or three were in good health. We meet with a medical opinion as early as 1836 that 'not one-fourth of the deaths results merely from ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... to the opinion of a committee of the House of Commons on the growth of tobacco in Ireland, in 1840, as follows:—'That it further appears, from the evidence, that smuggling of foreign tobacco is at present carried on to a great extent, and that all the measures now adopted, at great expense to the country, are and will be ineffectual to repress ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... showed—a touch which undoubtedly helped him in his letters. But of critical power he had nothing at all; and his knowledge (save, perhaps in Art) was anything but extensive and still less accurate. Politically he was a mere baby, all the eighty years of his life; though he passed many of them in the House of Commons and might have passed several in the House of Lords, had he chosen to attend it. When he was young he was a theoretical republican rejoicing in the execution of Charles I.: when he was old the French Revolution ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... absolution, summoned four men from each county to meet at St. Albans to assess the damages of the clergy which he had bound himself to make good. The meeting thus summoned was the germ of the future House of Commons. It was not a national political assembly, but it was a national jury gathered together into one place. The exiled barons were recalled, and John now hoped that his vassals would follow him to Poitou. They refused to do so, ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner
... with a belief that they at least had forgotten any antecedent state of things at Lexley; for they had even reason to congratulate themselves on the change. Jonas had long been strenuously active in the House of Commons in promoting county improvements. Jonas was useful as a magistrate, and invaluable as a liberal contributor to the local charities. During the first five years of his occupancy, he did more for Lexley and its inhabitants ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... which seemed to me but as an hour, so great was the love I bore her; had it been my fate to possess her, to call her mine, perhaps I should only have been, after a while, very fond of her, as men are of their wives—very glad to find her at home, after a day spent in the House of Commons, at one time of the year, or in shooting, at another. She might only have been one object to me among many others. It might have been so, though it is difficult to believe it; but we must believe what we see, nor ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... reported "Bad news from Ravenna—a great pity indeed," is dated Newgate, where he had been lodged in consequence of his pamphlet entitled "A Trifling Mistake in Thomas Lord Erskine's Recent Pamphlet," containing several very strong reflections on the House of Commons as ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... entered the House of Commons at the age of twenty-three, Sir Robert Peel was leading the Tory party with an authority and ability rarely surpassed in parliamentary annals. Within two years the young man was admitted into the short-lived Tory ministry of 1834, and soon proved himself an active ...
— William Ewart Gladstone • James Bryce
... elections: none; the monarchy is hereditary; governor general appointed by the monarch on the advice of the prime minister for a five-year term; following legislative elections, the leader of the majority party or the leader of the majority coalition in the House of Commons is automatically designated prime ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... information, we refer our readers to the Reports on Steam Navigation with India. Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed. 14th July 1834, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... Parliament comprised of House of Lords (consists of approximately 500 life peers, 92 hereditary peers and 26 clergy) and House of Commons (659 seats; members are elected by popular vote to serve five-year terms unless the House is dissolved earlier) elections: House of Lords - no elections (note - in 1999, as provided by the House of ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... back out. The convention came together again in December, and took measures looking towards the assumption of full statehood. In the constitution they drew up they provided, among other things, for a Senate and a House of Commons, to form the legislative body, which should itself choose the Governor. [Footnote: Haywood, 142; although Ramsey writes more in full about the Franklin government, it ought not to be forgotten that the groundwork ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt
... not a history of the British constitution, it does not concern it to relate how or why West Lynne got into hot water with the House of Commons. The House threatened to disfranchise it, and West Lynne under the fear, went into mourning for its sins. The threat was not carried out; but one of the sitting members was unseated with ignominy, and ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... he, with an intention to keep my life of honour in view, in the declaration I made her; but, as it has been said of a certain orator in the House of Commons, who more than once, in a long speech, convinced himself as he went along, and concluded against the side he set out intending to favour, so I in earnest pressed without reserve for matrimony in the progress of my harangue, which state I little thought of urging upon her ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... or from any British port, for the space of twenty-one years, except the five per cent. due upon their goods and merchandise, according to the ancient trade of merchants; but the Massachusetts delegates obtained an ordinance of Parliament, or rather an order of the House of Commons, complimenting the colony on its progress and hopeful prospects, and discharging all the exports of the natural products of the colony and all the goods imported into it for its own use, from the payment of any custom ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... books, amounted to no less than 8,029,156 quarters, one bushel. The bounty paid for this amounted to 1,514,962:17:4 1/2. In 1749, accordingly, Mr Pelham, at that time prime minister, observed to the house of commons, that, for the three years preceding, a very extraordinary sum had been paid as bounty for the exportation of corn. He had good reason to make this observation, and in the following year he might have had still better. In that single year, the bounty paid amounted ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... nothing of Falmouth's accident.' The count replied that Falmouth was his intimate friend; he had received a special report that Falmouth was dying, just as he was on the point of mounting his horse. 'We shan't have lost time,' said Mr. Hill. The Government wanted votes. I went down to the House of Commons at midnight to see him. He had then heard of Falmouth's hopeless condition, and after extracting my political views, which were for the nonce those of a happy subserviency, he expressed his belief that the new writ for the borough ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... especially of Lord Kitchener, who, in this affair, became the scapegoat for many sins he had never committed. The question of the Concentration Camps was made the subject of interpellations in the House of Commons, and indignation meetings were held in many parts of England. The Nonconformist Conscience was deeply stirred at what was thought to be conduct which not even the necessities of war could excuse. Torrents ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill
... resist the pressure. After some attempt at temporizing and delaying the concession, on April 15, 1782, by the firmness of Grattan and his supporters in the Dublin House of Commons, the great ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... with them, but much with the system by which they are controlled. Is it probable that a man should be fitted to select guides for other men's souls because he has succeeded by infinite labour in his vocation in becoming the leader of a majority in the House of Commons?' ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... gentleman of common cultivated society. That is Sir Coeur de Lion Plantagenet in the mutton-chop whiskers and the plain gray suit; there is the Laureate in a frockcoat like your own, and the leader of the House of Commons in a necktie you do not envy. That is the kind of thing you want to take the nonsense out of you. If you are not decanted off from yourself every few days or weeks, you will think it sacrilege to brush a cobweb from your cork by and by. O little fool, that has published a little book ...
— The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... collusion) was beaten by the Conservatives, though the latter were nominally much in the minority. The popular representatives in the House understood pretty well what this meant, and after an attempt to fight the matter out by divisions in the House of Commons, they made a protest, left the House, and came in a body to the Committee of Public Safety: and the civil war began again in ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... was wisely entrusted to Mr. BRIDGEMAN. Lord SPENCER once delighted the House of Commons by announcing that he was "not an agricultural labourer"; and Mr. BRIDGEMAN similarly put it in a good temper by admitting that he had never himself worked in a mine. But he showed quite a sufficient ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 25th, 1920 • Various
... did not found one school in Yorkshire, and many, which had previously existed, he deprived of all revenue. So diminished were the means of education in 1562 that Thomas Williams, on his election as Speaker of the House of Commons, took occasion to call Queen Elizabeth's notice to the great dearth of schools "that at least one hundred were wanting, which before this time had been." In other words in a period of less than thirty years the number had decreased by a third. And this was in spite of a six years' ...
— A History of Giggleswick School - From its Foundation 1499 to 1912 • Edward Allen Bell
... ten years ago, at a great age, and his grandson, long since able to dispense with his crutches, is one of the most prominent members in the House of Commons. He could, had he chosen, have long since had a place in the Ministry, but he declined, as it would have taken too much of his time from the favourite subject which occupies the chief part of his thoughts and life, namely the effort to ameliorate the condition ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... French companies on the Upper Niger. French energy secured for the Republic the very lands which the great traveller Mungo Park first revealed to the gaze of civilised peoples. It is worthy of note that in the year 1865 the House of Commons, when urged to promote British trade and influence on that mighty river, passed a resolution declaring that any extension of our rule in that quarter was inexpedient. So rapid, however, was the progress of the French arms on the Niger, and ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... does the ordinary English boy, thus taught to utter one ignorance in one of two accents, get and keep through life about the French Revolution? It is the notion of the English House of Commons with an enormous Radical majority on one side of the table and a small Tory minority on the other; the majority voting solid for a Republic, the minority voting solid for a Monarchy; two teams tramping through two lobbies with no difference between their methods and ours, ...
— Utopia of Usurers and other Essays • G. K. Chesterton
... just ask you, Mamma, about one thing that has all along puzzled me very much. What was the House of Lords about all this time that they let the House of Commons govern the country and have their ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 17, 1917 • Various
... was a wonderful man, Treasury said he was a new power in the country, and would be able to buy up the whole House of Commons. Bishop said he was glad to think that this wealth flowed into the coffers of a gentleman who was always disposed to maintain the best interests ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... explain in the next issue of THE GREAT ROUND WORLD who are eligible to seats in the House of Lords and in the House of Commons? By thus doing you will greatly oblige one who is very much ...
— The Great Round World And What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, November 4, 1897, No. 52 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... or responsive. Gorman knows that he has never rendered any service to literature at all, that he wrote novels because he wanted money in the days before a grateful country paid him L400 a year for walking round the lobbies of the House of Commons, that he tumbled into his play by accident and made money out of it because a very charming lady was more charming than usual in the ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... degraded state of Indian morality, especially in pecuniary transactions; and the measures necessary in this instance were charged as the extreme of tyranny. But those charges were never substantiated; they came before the House of Commons in the shape of resolutions, and were negatived by a large majority, 182 to 31. Paul, in a struggle to become a popular character, and as a candidate for Westminster, involved himself in an unfortunate duel with Sir Francis Burdett, in which both were wounded; but Paul's wound, suddenly ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... avoided. No doubt these functions could be discharged by a government officer, the friend or relative of a man of parliamentary influence, and equally without doubt this consideration is likely to carry more weight in the House of Commons than any claims derived from immemorial usage and centuries of ...
— The Corporation of London: Its Rights and Privileges • William Ferneley Allen
... seen any of the things that have been lately published about the negroes? We have just read a very small pamphlet of about ten pages, merely an account of the facts stated to the House of Commons. Twenty-five thousand people in England have absolutely left off eating West India sugar, from the hope that when there is no longer any demand for sugar the slaves will not be so cruelly treated. Children in several schools have given up sweet things, ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... formidable to look at, unless on the theory that he likes it. I suspect that is why; and I suspect it is at least ten per cent of why Lord Beaconsfield and Mr. Gladstone have debated so much in the House of Commons, and why Burnaby rode to Khiva the other day, and why the Admirals courted war like ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Ellis say to his underling, "Numero cinq, sur la terrace, un couvert." It was real at last. Outside, the Thames lay a great gray shadow. The lights of the Embankment flashed and twinkled across it, the tower of the House of Commons rose against the sky, and here, inside, the waiter was hurrying toward him carrying a smoking plate of rich soup with a pungent ...
— The Lion and the Unicorn and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... the ground of illegality, and had held a second. The Lower House found that this was improper, on the ground that the right of deciding in matters concerning the election of representatives belonged from ancient times to the House of Commons alone. They declined to confer on this subject with the Privy Council, or with the Upper House. Ill-will and jealousy were excited against those of higher rank who had wished to bring one of their own party ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... naturally seen with an evil eye by those who rose up early and lay down late in order to furnish him with the means of indulging in splendour and luxury. Such abuses it was the especial business of a House of Commons to correct. What then had the existing House of Commons done in the way of correction? Absolutely nothing. In 1690, indeed, while the Civil List was settling, some sharp speeches had been made. In 1691, when the Ways and Means ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the grievances, pertaining to every part of the subject, were fully entered into, in that comprehensive inquiry which took place in the Select Committee of the House of Commons, previously to the introduction of Sir Andrew Agnew's first bill, which elicited so much and such important and valuable information; and it follows as a consequence, that every mischief which was within the scope of the inquiry, should be within the scope of the enactment to be grounded upon ...
— The Baptist Magazine, Vol. 27, January, 1835 • Various
... said, "Let us go upstairs." But the men had most of them to go, some to the House of Commons, ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... A stronger generation would arise, a generation stronger and better able to look after itself. But come, we have been serious long enough. You are tired with your day's work, Miss Julia, and Aaron, too. I've been in the committee room of the House of Commons half the day, and my head's addled with figures. Here comes our supper. Let us drop the more serious things of life. We'll try and put a little colour into your cheeks, ...
— A People's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... monasteries prior to Henry's time show he was simply carrying out what, in a small way, had been attempted before. King John, Edward I. and Edward III., had confiscated "alien priories." Richard II. and Henry IV. had made similar raids. In 1410, the House of Commons proposed the confiscation of all the temporalities held by bishops, abbots and priors, that the money might be used for a standing army, and to increase the income of the nobles and secular clergy. It was not done, but the attempt ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart
... wrote a book and several pamphlets, delivered public lectures, and raised a discussion in the public press. The London City Corporation petitioned Parliament in 1842 for the abolition of burials within the City, and a Select Committee of the House of Commons was at once entrusted with an enquiry ...
— In Search Of Gravestones Old And Curious • W.T. (William Thomas) Vincent
... concludes Teufelsdrockh, in his abrupt way; "of which truth Clothes are but one example: and surely if we consider the interval between the first wooden Dibble fashioned by man, and those Liverpool Steam-carriages, or the British House of Commons, we shall note what progress he has made. He digs up certain black stones from the bosom of the earth, and says to them, Transport me and this luggage at the rate of file-and-thirty miles an hour; and they do it: he collects, apparently by lot, six ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... local poet, Abraham Wildman. The latter was interested in the working folk, and had published some poems reflecting on their hard life. Oastler took up the case of the children, twelve of whom with crooked legs he had exhibited in the House of Commons. Wildman's poem, descriptive of these poor young folk, was submitted to the Duke of Wellington. His grace commended the poet, saying England would be in a deplorable condition if this were to be a fair sample of the soldiers that were to be sent from her factories. The term "crooked ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... Importance of the Registration of Deeds; dictated to me for an Election Committee of the House of Commons. acknowl. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... in following up these recommendations, till the subject was brought before the House of Commons by Dr John Bowring, in 1847. The consequence of his appeal was, that a coin denominated a florin, and representing the tenth of a pound, was struck, and put in circulation. It was, however, considered 'an unfortunate specimen of Royal Mint art,' and the issue was discontinued, though ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 428 - Volume 17, New Series, March 13, 1852 • Various
... followed up. The French Ambassador in England established relations with Colonial agents in London which enabled him to follow the progress of the growing discontent and anticipate the questions which must soon be brought forward for decision. Franklin's examination before the House of Commons became the text of an elaborate despatch, harmonizing with the report of his secret agent, and opening a prospect which even the weary eyes of Louis XV. could not look upon without some return of the spirit that had won for his youth the long forfeited title of the Well-Beloved. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... parties began to differ. The Liberals, who were then in power, started a distinctively Canadian navy on a very small scale. In 1911 naval policy was, for the first time, one of the vexed questions in a general election. In 1912 the new Conservative government passed through the House of Commons an act authorizing an appropriation of thirty-five million dollars for three first-class Dreadnought battleships. This happened to be the exact sum paid by the Imperial government for the fortification of Quebec in 1832, and considerably less than one-thirtieth part ...
— All Afloat - A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways • William Wood
... for me to dwell upon the popularity with which my efforts there were attended. I consequently lived a good deal apart from my wife, whom I had not courage to present as such to the world. Every day now established my success in the House of Commons, and increased my ambition. The constitution of my wife had been naturally a delicate one, and I understood, subsequently to our union, that there had been decline in her family to such an extent, that nearly one-half of them had died of it. In this way we ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... creature as that old woman at the palace couldn't have held his head up among us. That's what has come from Reform. A reformed House of Commons makes Lord Brock Prime Minister, and then your Prime Minister makes Dr Proudie a bishop! Well;—it will last ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... Ireland, to a life of retirement; but both in 1856 and again in 1862 he went out to the East to take a part in further surveys and negotiations for the Euphrates valley railway scheme, which, however, the government would not take up, in spite of a favourable report from the House of Commons committee in 1871. In 1868 he published a further volume of narrative on his Euphrates expedition. He died on the 30th of ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... Drury Lane cried, "If I succeed I shall go mad!"; of Henry Irving (then at his zenith) and the five hundred parts he had played before he came to London; he recalled also the failure of Disraeli's first speech in the House of Commons and his triumphant prophecy. He had dreams of that manager on his bended knees, imploring him, with prayerful hands and streaming eyes, to play Hamlet at a salary of a thousand a week and of himself haughtily snapping his fingers ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... it. As the head of the house, he felt that he ought to have been consulted, especially after taking the young man so publicly by the hand; "For they must have been seen together," he observed, "once at Tattersall's, and twice in the lobby of the House of Commons." His disapprobation was expressed, but apparently very little regarded. Mr Elliot had attempted no apology, and shewn himself as unsolicitous of being longer noticed by the family, as Sir Walter considered ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... was characteristically dramatic. They came in the persons of Fraser's Highlanders, hard on the heels of the gallant Black Watch. This regiment, known as the old 78th, was celebrated in many ways. This is the corps raised by Lord Lovat, that Pitt was said to have had in mind when in the British House of Commons he delivered the famous panegyric ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... Puritans from the chaos of internecine church squabbles, the determined raising of the voice of the people in the Long Parliament, where King and people finally came to an open clash in the impeachment of the King's most devoted minister, Wentworth, Earl Strafford, by Pym, the great leader in the House of Commons, ending in Strafford's execution; the Grand Remonstrance, which sounded in no uncertain tones the tocsin of the coming revolution; and finally the King's impeachment of Pym, Hampden, Holles, Hazelrigg and Strode, one of the many ill-advised ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... wealth, and commerce," said Mr. Cobden in the course of a recent debate in the House of Commons, "grow out of the skilled labour of the men working in metals. They are at the foundation of our manufacturing greatness; and in case you were attacked, they would at once be available, with their hard hands and skilled brains, to manufacture your muskets and your cannon, your shot ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... meet him at Mr. Southwell's by ten this morning too, which I did, thinking it was some particular matter. All the Irish in town were there, to consult upon preventing a Bill for laying a duty on Irish yarn; so we talked a while, and then all went to the lobby of the House of Commons, to solicit our friends, and the Duke came among the rest; and Lord Anglesea solicited admirably, and I did wonders. But, after all, the matter was put off till Monday, and then we are to be at it again. I dined with Lord Mountjoy, and looked over him at chess, which put me in mind of ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... the public on the very favorable opinion which the Royal College of Physicians of London, after a most minute and laborious investigation made by the command of his Majesty, have a second time expressed on the subject of vaccination, in their Report laid before the House of Commons, in the last session of Parliament; in consequence of which the sum of twenty thousand pounds was voted to Dr. Jenner, as a remuneration for his discovery, in addition to ten thousand pounds ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... proposed to write a work called "An Introduction to Astrology," in which he would satisfy the whole kingdom of the lawfulness of that art. Many of the soldiers were for it, he says, and many of the Independent party, and abundance of worthy men in the House of Commons, his assured friends, and able to take his part against the Presbyterians, who would have silenced his predictions if they could. He afterwards carried his plan into execution, and when his book was published, went with another astrologer named Booker ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... Lord John Russell's measure was being debated in the House of Commons, there was a new political animation in Middlemarch, and a new definition of parties which might show a decided change of balance if a new election came. And there were some who already predicted this event, declaring that a Reform Bill would never be ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... still living who could recall the day when France had a real parliament, the Estates-General as it was called. This body had at one time all the essentials of a representative assembly. It might have become, as the English House of Commons became, the grand inquest of the nation. But it did not do so. The waxing personal strength of the monarchy curbed its influence, its authority weakened, and throughout the great century of French colonial expansion from 1650 to 1750 the Estates-General was never convoked. The ...
— The Seigneurs of Old Canada: - A Chronicle of New-World Feudalism • William Bennett Munro
... contested election in Southwark, Johnson published a short political pamphlet, entitled "The Patriot," addressed to the electors of Great Britain. It was written with energetic vivacity; and except those passages in which it endeavours to vindicate the glaring outrage of the House of Commons in the case of the Middlesex election and to justify the attempt to reduce our fellow-subjects in America to unconditional submission, it contained an admirable display of the properties of a real patriot, in the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... British parliament, and others bear witness. None will question the evidence of these facts which are known on the authority of such men as the Marquis of Normanby and his Excellency the Earl of Carlisle. The Hon. Mr. Pope Hennessey stated in the House of Commons: "That the national prosperity of the States of the Church and of Austria had become greater, year after year, than that of Sardinia (where a sort of revolutionary constitution had been established), and that documents existed in the Foreign Office, in the shape of reports ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... Wednesday, 19th January following, was kept with great strictness. The Order in Council also appeared in the Gazette for an advance of wages to the families of those officers and seamen who had perished in the storm, in the same manner as if they had been killed in battle. The House of Commons also addressed Her Majesty upon this melancholy occasion, desiring her to give directions for repairing this loss, and to build such capital ships as she should think fit, and promising to make good the expense at their next meeting. Thus, great as was the loss, ...
— John Deane of Nottingham - Historic Adventures by Land and Sea • W.H.G. Kingston
... either through the influence of Mr. Canning, or from having imbibed some political taste, sat in the House of Commons nine years, representing Lancaster in 1819, Woodstock from 1821 to 1826, and Berwick in 1827; but he never would consent to sit in Parliament for the city of Liverpool, for he thought that so large and important ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... House of Commons resolved itself into a committee of the whole house to take into consideration that part of the King's speech at the opening of the session which related to the public debts, and the proposal of the South Sea Company toward the redemption and sinking of the same. The ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... seems a very strong proof that the house of commons was not then in being; otherwise the knights and burgesses from the several counties could have given in to the lords a list of grievances, without so ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... to the Exchequer, weighed before the Commissioners of the House of Commons 2145.6 cubical inches, by the Exchequer standard foot, of distilled water, at the temperature of 55 deg. of Fahrenheit, and found it to weigh 1131 oz. 14 dts. Troy, of the Exchequer standard. The beam turned with 6 grs. when loaded with 30 pounds in ...
— Elements of Chemistry, - In a New Systematic Order, Containing all the Modern Discoveries • Antoine Lavoisier
... forgotten. It would be folly to pretend to any dogmatic assurance—and I certainly do not—as to the course of the future in India. But for to-day anybody who takes part in the rule of India, whether as a Minister or as a Member of the House of Commons, participating in the discussion on affairs in India—anyone who wants to take a fruitful part in such discussions, if he does his duty will found himself on the assumption that the British rule will continue, ought to continue, and must continue. There ...
— Indian speeches (1907-1909) • John Morley (AKA Viscount Morley)
... 4, 1916, Lord Robert Cecil, War Trade Minister, said in the British House of Commons that the situation was more serious than it had ever been before. Despite assurances from the Greek king that no disturbances would be permitted, a "most treacherous and unprovoked attack was made on the Allies' detachments landed by the French admiral on Friday." The British Government, Lord ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... away from her. Though Lord George were to die to-morrow, she would still be a Marchioness, and the coming boy, his grandson, would be the Marquis. He himself was young for his age. He might yet live to hear his grandson make a speech in the House of Commons as Lord Popenjoy. ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... from the lower to the upper rooms. The lower part of this house was repeatedly set on fire in the presence, among others, of the King and Queen, the members of Parliament, the Lord Mayor, and the Aldermen. The House of Commons granted Hartley L2,500 in aid of the expenses incurred, and the Corporation erected in the grounds an obelisk—which can be plainly seen from the Kingston Road—recording the experiments of the grant. The heath was the scene of many duels, among ...
— Hammersmith, Fulham and Putney - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... Catholics non-resistants, because for two hundred years they submitted to exclusion from the House of Lords and the House of Commons, rather than qualify themselves for a seat by an oath abjuring the Pope? Were the non-juring Bishops of England non-resistants, when they went down to the grave without taking their seats in the House of Lords, rather than take an oath denying the ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... course answers to our House of Commons—is a handsome, commodious room, admirably fitted for the purposes required. It strikes one as rather low; but I doubt, if it were higher, whether it would be better adapted for hearing. Even at present it is not perfect in this respect as regards ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... should afterwards deny it officially seems to me to have been utterly inevitable. His denial did her not the faintest damage, as I have pointed out. It was, so to speak, an official quibble, rendered necessary by the circumstances of the case. Not to have denied the marriage in the House of Commons would have meant ruin to both of them. As months passed, more serious difficulties awaited the unhappily wedded pair. What boots it to repeat the story of the Princes great debts and desperation? It was clear that there was but ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... did its work admirably, in the adroit hand of Joshua. The hitherto intractable beard flew off rapidly, and Joshua's tongue moved more glibly even than his razor. Barbers in the act of office have, like the House of Commons, the privilege of speech. They are not amenable afterwards for what they say. In the act they are omnipotent, for who would quarrel with a man who is slipping a razor over your carotid artery? Not, certainly, Mr Pigtop. Thus spoke Joshua, amid the ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... does such a safeguard as the House of Lords mean? Is it a safeguard at all? Enormous powers are already possessed by the House of Commons. It has finance under its control, it has the Executive Government; the control of foreign affairs and the great patronage of the State are all in the power of the House of Commons at the present time. And if you are to proceed on the basis that the ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... war, but that the arms of America have covered themselves with a success so happy, that the Congress, assisted by the Courts of France and Spain, have so well established their liberty and independence, and reduced Great Britain to extremities so critical, that the House of Commons in England, notwithstanding all the opposition of the British Ministry, have lately formed the important resolution to turn the King from an offensive war against America, with no other design than to accelerate, if it is ...
— A Collection of State-Papers, Relative to the First Acknowledgment of the Sovereignty of the United States of America • John Adams
... knowledge of the common law that he had acquired in his youth, there was no reason why they might not mount up to 25,000l. The story is only worth relating as an instance of the professional lawyer's ingrained contempt for such a tribunal as a committee composed of five or more ordinary members of the House of Commons. But to- day [July 16, 1867] it so happened that when Mr. Hope-Scott for the first time in his life had to sit in a chair and be examined and cross-examined before such a committee, his Common Law stood him ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... Western's own life and was as follows. He was a man of good but not of large fortune. He had been to Oxford and had there distinguished himself. He had been called to the bar but had not practised. He had gone into Parliament, but had left it, finding that the benches of the House of Commons were only fitted for the waste of time. He had joined scientific societies to which he still belonged, but which he did not find to be sufficient for his happiness. During these attempts and changes he had taken a house in London, and having a house had thought it well to look for a wife. ...
— Kept in the Dark • Anthony Trollope
... than to seize? Is it meaner to thank than to threaten? If he who is supported by the public is a beggar, our kings are beggars, our pensions are charity. Did not the Princess Royal hold out her hand, the other day, to the House of Commons? and does any one think the worse of her for it? We are all, in measure, beggars; but Beppo, in the large style of kings and robber-barons, asks for his baiocco, and, like the merchant-princes, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... white beneath the snow. At home the father they scarcely saw, who was wholly indifferent, who took his meals in his room, and would come down at night to the rectory parlour and read aloud the appallingly dreary debates of the House of Commons: without, the silence of the adjoining graveyard, the great treeless desert, and the moors that from autumn to summer were swept by the ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... bomb-shells exploded in the chamber of Parliament. Such a scene had never before and has never since been seen in the House of Commons. The members were all on their feet, some white with terror, some red with indignation. Vane ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... I am speaking to you from my own private sanctum at the House of Commons; and if you want to make sure, you can take my number, and ring up the ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... and stealing soldiers throughout Europe and America. No! And while I ask you, my friends, to ponder this fact in relation to that disastrous struggle of giants which so recently occurred in our day—the Crimean War—I ask you whether any English gentleman, any member of the British House of Commons, any member of the British House of Peers, abandoned the ease of home, abandoned his easy hours at home, and went into the country among his friends, tenants, and fellow-countrymen, volunteering there to raise troops for the service of England ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... convinced that sooner or later the influence which every English Government has at its command—the powerful and demoralizing influence—sooner or later will sap the best party you can return to the House of Commons.'" ...
— Six days of the Irish Republic - A Narrative and Critical Account of the Latest Phase of Irish Politics • Louis Redmond-Howard
... following day the polling began, and we never have had such a bustle in our parish since we got up our famous anti-slavery petition, which was such an important one, that the House of Commons ordered it to be printed, on the motion of the member for the district. The captain engaged two hackney-coaches and a cab for Bung's people—the cab for the drunken voters, and the two coaches for the old ladies, the greater portion of whom, owing to ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... against truck originated here. The nailers, the cash-paying masters, and the respectable ratepayers joined together to promote the Truck Act of 1820. Lord Hatherton, a Staffordshire nobleman, after three years hammering at the House of Commons, obtained the Truck Act of 1831. But in 1843, the year of the Midland Mining Commission, truck was still rife in the coalfields. The well-known Tommy-shop scene in Disraeli's novel Sybil, which was published in ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... wish to continue it. He had scored supremely and, for him, to score was life itself. His reputation as a card was far, far higher than ever. Had he so desired, he could have been elected to the House of Commons on the strength ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... debate which now ensued in Parliament over England's right to tax America, Mansfield, the greatest constitutional lawyer of his day, maintained—first, that America was represented in Parliament as much as Manchester and several other large cities in England which elected no members to the House of Commons, and yet were taxed; and, second, that an internal tax, such as that on stamps, was identical in principle with customs duties, which the colonies had never resisted. In reply, Pitt, the great champion of the colonies, asserted—first, that the case of the colonies was not at all ...
— History of the United States, Volume 2 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews |
