PEOPLE AND THINGS
By HAROLD NICOLSON
T is a truism to liken the House of Commons to a public I school, and in truth I find the boyishness of the Mother of Parliaments most rejuvenating. It is natural, I suppose, that human beings, when segregated from their domestic or social surroundings and herded in one building for purposes both of work and play, should develop similar patterns of behaviour. Yet it often strikes me as strange and interest- ing that our elderly legislators should, even in the smallest quirks of conduct and of gesture, repeat so accurately the manners and customs of their own puberty. One recognises the same preference for " character " (which is the house- master's phrase for " convenient conformity ") as against imagination or independence (which are classed as symptoms of the " crank " or " freak "). There is an identical tendency to laugh a little too loudly at the Headmaster's jokes ; the same propensity towards herd-giggling when any untoward incident occurs ; the same overt desire to address the Captain of Cricket by his christian name. * * * *
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