12 AUGUST 1848, Page 9

The Times gives the following sketch "from a spectator "-

" At twelve o clock last night the condition of honourable Members in the two galleries of the House of Commons was most pitiable. Legislation is evil ntly much inure fatiguing than the hardest agricultural labour. Who ever saw in the. heat of harvest a dozen labourers fast asleep in a field of a few perches? And yet last night, in the highest fervour of legislation, within a smaller compass, I saw at least a dozen of our legislatorial labourers recumbent at full length on the downy cushions of the galleries, and buried to all outward seeming in the moat profound repose. It would be invidious to mention the names of the dozen sleepers; but a high legal functionary was among them, who snored on unblushingly through a long debate. A Metropolitan Member, as if ashamed of his somnolency, did his best to sleep with decency, by covering his face with both his hands; but ano- ther, without the slightest regard to the usual canvenances of society, turned his face to the wall, and exposed a must extensive surface to 'the admiration of the House. At half-past twelve o'clock there was an attempt to report progreks; but all in vain. The only result of the motion was that the cry for a division woke the sleeping Members, who shook themselves gloomily, an then sheered

off with tottering steps and slow into the lobby, but up to Bellemy's, to ob- tain some slight refreshment to ole them to encounter titproloneed labour which at that hour they had still to undergo."