"THE HOUSE" AT FOUR O'CLOCK.
TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE House of Commons ffesented an interesting picture at fonr o'clock on Tuesday morning. The Members' benches were still crowded, although not quite so much so as at the time of the great division ; (when, without counting those that paired off, there were four hundred and sixty-two members present) ; and the only circumstances that indicated the lateness of the hour, were the scanty longitude of the tapers, and the deserted appearance of the Stranger's Gallery, where about twenty lingerers remained, with countenances in which weariness and sleep struggled hard with curiosity for mastery. There was impatience in the body of the House, but it was by no means of so noisy a character as we have often seen it : the excitation of the subject, much more than the eloquence of the speaker, seemed to keep down the uneasiness which excessive heat and long and irksome confinement of the limbs necessarily produce. The indefatigable Colonel Suernon.PE was allowed to speak with very little interruption ; and to propose, and even to divide the House on a rider, and thus to gain for him- self and eighteen others, the nine days' praise of having combated to the last, the greatest, the wisest, and the most beneficial mea- sure that had been entertained by the House of Commons for one hundred and forty years. The number that remained in the House after this division was about two hundred and fifty. Mr. Secretary PEEL brought up his riders, which were put and carried in dumb- show ; and then there was a dead pause, like the momentary resting of the mountain wave, when, accumulated to its utmost height, it seems to measure the beach on which it is about to descend in thun- der. The pause was broken by the deep melodious voice of the Speaker— "-THAT THIS BILL BE NOW READ A THIRD TIME—AS MANY AS ARE OF THAT OPINION, SAY Ay!"
All the trumpets, double-drums, trombones, and instruments in the world, are as nothing to the powerful response that burst simul- taneously from the assentients.
The converse was pre-eminently ludicrous. On the question—, "As MANY AS ARE OF A CONTRARY OPINION, SAY No !"
The answer ran somewhat sfter this fashion, but infinitely more tiny :— " No ! nol no! no!"
The same exhibition of heartiness and power, and of hesitation and weakness, was observable on the last question—" THAT THE 'BILL DO PASS ! "—only that the two or three Noes were in the latter case all but inaudible, being drowned in the loud and unanimous huzza that accompanied the Speaker's annunciation of "THE AYES HAVE IT!"
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