Page:In defense of Harriet Shelley, and other essays.djvu/222

 was paralyzed. The Right (the government side) could accomplish nothing. Then it hada saving idea. This idea was a curious one* It was to, have the President and the Vice-Presidents of the parlia ment trample the Rules under foot upon occasion I.

This, for a profoundly embittered minority, iconr strutted out of fire and gun-iootton! Iti wa&, time for idle strangers to go and ask leave, to /look clown out of a gallery and see what would be the result of&amp;gt; it.

��II. A MEMORABLE glT

��And now took place that memorable sitting of the House which broke! two; records. It lasted the best part of two days and a night, surpassing by half an hour the longest sitting known to the World s previous parliamentary history, and breaking the longrspeech record with Dr. Lecher s twelve-hour- effort^, the longest flow of unbroken talk that ever came out of one mouth since the world began.; m\\&amp;gt;t, oi rrotinm i;

At 8.45, on the evening of the 28th of October, when the House had been sitting a fewf minutes short of ten hours, Dr. Lecher was granted the floor. It was a good place for theatrical effects. I think that no other Senate House is so shapely as this one, or so richly and showily decorated. Its plan is that of an opera-house. Up toward the, straight side of it the stage side rise a couple of terraces, of desks for the ministry, and the official clerks .or secretaries terraces thirty feet long; ; and each; ; supporting about half a dozen desks with spaces between them. Above these is the President s terrace, &amp;gt;agaiiist the

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