Mr. E. J. C. Morton, the Gladstonian Member for Devon-
port—a person who must in no way be confounded with Mr. Alphasus Cleophas Morton—in a speech made at the recent National Liberal Federation, and reported in last Saturday's Manchester Guardian, produced a very curious and interesting quotation from Pepys's Diary in regard to the payment of Members :—Under the date March 30th, 1668, Pepys mentions that he was dining the night before at the house of Sir William Penn, " and there had much discourse about the constitution of Parliament." "But all did agree," he goes on, "that the bane of the Parliament bath been the leaving off of the old custom by which places did allow wages to those that did re- present them in Parliament, whereby they sent men who understood their business and that they could get an account from. But now Parliament is become an assembly of men that can give no account to the places that they represent." For many reasons for which we have no space now, this does not convince us, but it is curious to note in regard to this subject that Lord Campbell held that a Member might at Common Law still recover his expenses from the consti- tuency electing him; and Mr. Barnett Smith, in his new " History of the English Parliament," shows how a Mr. Thomas King obtained from the Lord Chancellor a writ against the Corporation of Harwich for his expenses as late as 1681,—at a date, that is, after the statute by which regular wages had been paid had been repealed. Why should not Mr. E. J. C. Merton bring an action against the Mayor and Corporation of Devonport for his expenses in Parliament, and see if Lord Campbell's opinion will be upheld by the Courts P
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