20 JUNE 1829, Page 7

"A STRANGER IN THE GALLERY." •

THE PRESS.

Measitalo JOURNAL—The case of Mr. Nash was brought before the House of , Commons last night (Friday). Colonel Davies opposed the bringing up of the report of the select committee. Our readers have perhaps heard, or, at least, they have occasionally seen, the name of a person called Frankland Lewis in our reports of Parliament. We do not exactly know how to express our opinion of Mr. Frankland Lewis. It is difficult to describe an atom. We cannot say whether that which is less than any comparable object is round or square. This mikrotatos mikrotaton, Mr. Frankland Lewis. while Colonel Davies was in the midst of his speech, rose, and, with an affectation of silliness most admirably in keeping with his natural character, observed, that he thought he perceived a stranger in the • house. There might be, exclusive of the reporters, about thirty gentlemen in the gallery. And thereupon Mr. F. Lewis moved the standing order, that strangers should withdraw. The public, accordingly, after paying—at least some few of them—for their seats (for be it known to our country friends that half-a-crown is as sufficient a passport to the gallery of the House of C0111111011S as a shilling is to the gallery of Covent-garden, and, we must add, infinitely worse bestowed), were hurried down stairs, and the reporters shut up in the little room at the end of the gallery lobby for three quarters of an hour, until the important business of Mr. Nash was concluded, and then they were admitted to chro- nicle the nothings of the gentlemen who had. when something was to be told, shut the door in their face. The last instance of such a mode of proceeding was, we believe, on Lord Porchester's inotion respecting the famous Walcheren expe- dition, when the standing order was moved by the late Mr. Yorke. That it should have been revived at this time of day, was what, we confess. we did not expect. The gentlemen of the House of Commons do not seem to be aware that in these, as in most cases, there are two at a bargain. If they shut us out now and then when they wish their speeches to be kept secret, we may shut ourselves out when they wish their speeches to be made public. Who would be the losers were the standing order regularly enforced ? Are there any parliament men so inconceivably small-witted as ti imagine that we should ? We tell those gentle- men that the press of Eugland would survive and flourish in spite of the balaam which it borrows from their debates; but that their existence would he placed on the east of a the from the moment that, by concealing their deliberations, they turned away the attention of the public from them. Of all the plans by which the Commons could most effectually serve the ends of those who seek their downfal, the plan proposed by Mr. Frankland Lewis is the most effectual. Pur- sue it for one session, and we venture to prophesy that in one session more there would not be a House of Commons in England.