Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 10.djvu/238

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NOTES AND QUERIES. tn s. x. SEPT. 19, wu.

As to Ministers and their hats, I recall that I never saw Gladstone with his hat in the House, and I do not remember ever seeing Sir William Harcourt without his.

Perhaps G. M. refers to the curious rule that if a member wants to raise or speak to a point of order when the doors have been closed for a division he must have a hat on and remain seated.

" In both houses every member who speaks, rises in his place, and stands uncovered. The only exception to the rule is in cases of sickness or infirmity, when the indulgence of a seat is allowed, at the suggestion of a member and with the general acquiescence of the house. The only occasion, in both houses, when a member speaks sitting and covered is a question of order which has arisen during a division, when the doors are closed." Sir T. Erskine May's ' Parliamentary Practice,' llth edition, 1906, p. 310, in the chapter on ' Rules of Debate.'

This last rule sometimes causes much amuse- ment.

There is a well-worn story that Gladstone wanted in these circumstances to speak on a point of order. Of course he had to borrow a hat which was so much too small for his big head that it had to be held on. For this story see 8 S. iv. 533.

I remember an amusing scene which took place, perhaps twelve or thirteen years ago. A certain member, whose attendance was infrequent, wishing to raise a point of order after the doors had been closed for a division, rose to his feet. Immediately he was greeted with loud cries of " Order ! Order ! " He sat or was pulled down ; then he rose again, and met with the same cries ; he glared round the house with astonished eyes. He was next to Henry Labouchere, who pulled him to his seat and held him, saying that he must do as he told him. A hat was obtained and put on the member's head, and then, "sitting and covered," he raised his point of order.

Few things amuse the House of Commons so much as the breaking of a rule by a member who knows nothing about it. Until some ten or fifteen years ago a member, apart from " Front Bench men," wishing to secure for himself a seat in the House for the ensuing sitting, placed a hat on the seat before the meeting of the house sometimes, on great occasions, many hours before. Then, he having been present at prayers, or some part thereof, the seat so marked became his for the sitting, and he put a card with his name on it into the little brass frame at the back of the seat. Large cards on which members write their names were sub- stituted for hats about the date mentioned.

G. M.'s suggestion that the wearing of a hat by a member (presumably when he speaks during a division as above), while the Speaker remains bare-headed, emphasizes the fact that the Speaker is the servant of the House, appears to be very improbable, seeing that in the seventeenth century, and perhaps later, the Speaker used to wear his hat when in the chair.

See the Great Seal of the Common- wealth, 1651, where every member, including the Speaker, has his hat on excepting the one who is speaking. See also certain old prints. ROBERT PIERPOINT.

DESCENDANTS OF CATHERINE PARR (11 S. x. 170, 215). Miss Strickland in her ' Lives of the Queens of England,' v. 129, cites a " Copy of MS. fragment, entitled ' A good account of my Pedigree, given me by my Grandmother,* July 26, 1749.' ' This ap- pears to be the paper of which the original or a copy is in the possession of KINGSTON, and which contains the particulars that he describes. Many relics of Catherine Parr's personal property are said to be in the pos- session of the Johnson Lawson family, who are descended from the marriage of Silas Johnson and the daughter of Sir Edward Bushell. Dr. Charles Cotton in his ' History of St. Laurence, Thanet,' 1895, p. 185, gives a copy of the MS. fragment, and seems to attach credence to the story, although he acknowledges that Strype says the child of the Lord Admiral Seymour and Catherine Parr died young, and that Lodge affirms that she died in her thirteenth year. Sir John Maclean, than whom there cannot be a sounder authority, in his ' Life of Sir Thomas Seymour,' 1869, p. 82, says: "Sey- mour's infant daughter was restored in blood by Act 3rd and 4th Edward VI., but died soon afterwards." This is probably the truth. W. F. PRIDEAUX.

DEATH FOLK-LORE (11 S. ix. 128, 196, 236, 278, 296, 350, 414). An exceptionally good article on customs as to the dead among the pre-Christian Lithuanians, Letts, and ancient Prussians (' Die vorchrist- lichen baltischen Totengebrauche) is in the current Archiv jiir Rcligionswissenscliaft (1914), xvii. 446-512. It covers almost all the items set out at ix. 236, with many more, and shows that the death of a master was told not only to the bees, but to all the domestic animals. The comments (pp. 494- 512) of the author, Prof. Caland of Utrecht, are valuable, and it is to be hoped that he