Faces and Places Part 11

There was no doubt about it. This was the Ladies' Gallery of the British House of Commons, and a pretty place it is to which to invite ladies. I never was good at geometry and that sort of thing, and cannot say how many feet or how many furlongs the gallery is in length, but I counted fourteen chairs placed pretty close together, and covered with a hideous green damask. There are three rows of chairs, the two back rows being raised above the first the height of one step. As far as seeing into the House is concerned, one might as well sit down on the flight of steps in Westminster Hall as sit on a chair in the back row in the Ladies'

Gallery. On the second row it is tolerable enough, or at least you get a good view of the little old gentleman with the sword by his side sitting in a chair at the far end of the House. I thought at first this was the Speaker, and wondered why gentlemen on the cross benches should turn their backs to him. But Chiltern said it was Lord Charles Russell, Sergeant-at-Arms, a much more important personage than the Speaker, who takes the Mace home with him every night, and is responsible for its due appearance on the table when the Speaker takes the chair.

In the front row you can see well enough--what there is to be seen, for I confess that my notion of the majesty of the House of Commons is mightily modified since I beheld it with my own eyes. In the first place you are quite shut out of sight in the Ladies' Gallery, and I might have saved myself all the trouble of dressing, which made me a little late and gave Chiltern an opportunity of saying disagreeable things which he subsequently spread over a fortnight. I might have been wearing a coal-scuttle bonnet or a mushroom hat for all it mattered in a prison like this. There was sufficient light for me to see with satisfaction that other people had given themselves at least an equal amount of trouble. Two had arrived in charming evening dress, with the loveliest flowers in their hair. I dare say they were going out to dinner, and at least I hope so, for it is a disgraceful thing that women should be entrapped into spending their precious time dressing for a few hours'

stay in a swept and garnished coal-hole like this.

The smiling and obliging attendant offered me the consolation of knowing that the Gallery is quite a charming place compared with what it used to be. Thirty or forty years ago, whilst the business of Parliament was carried on in a temporary building, accommodation for ladies was provided in a narrow box stationed above the Strangers' Gallery, whence they peered into the House through pigeon holes something like what you see in the framework of a peep-show. The present Gallery formed part of the design of the new Houses, but when it was opened it was a vastly different place. It was much darker, had no ante-rooms worth speaking of, and the leading idea of a sheep-pen was preserved to the extent of dividing it into three boxes, each accommodating seven ladies. About twelve years ago one of the dividing walls was knocked down, and the Ladies' Gallery thrown into a single chamber, with a special pen to which admission is obtained only by order from the Speaker. Still much remained to be done to make it even such a place as it now is, and that work was done by that much--and, as Chiltern will always have it, _unjustly_--abused man, Mr. Ayrton. It was he who threw open the back of the Gallery, giving us some light and air, and it is to him that we ladies are indebted for the dressing-room and the tea-room.

This being shut up is one reason why I was disappointed with the House of Commons. Another is with respect to the size of the chamber itself.

It is wonderful to think how _big_ men can talk in a room like this. It is scarcely larger than a good-sized drawing-room. I must say for Chiltern that we got seats in the front row, and what there was to be seen we saw. Right opposite to us was a gallery with rows of men sitting six deep. It was "a big night," and there was not a seat to spare in this, which I suppose was the Strangers' Gallery. Everybody there had his hat off, and there was an official sitting on a raised chair in the middle of the top row, something like I saw the warders sitting amongst prisoners at Millbank one Sunday morning when Chiltern took me to see the Claimant repeating the responses to the Litany. The House itself is of oblong shape, with rows of benches on either side, cus.h.i.+oned in green leather and raised a little above each other. There are four of these rows on either side, with a broad pa.s.sage between covered with neat matting.

Chiltern says the floor is an open framework of iron, and that beneath is a labyrinth of chambers into which fresh air is pumped and forced in a gentle stream into the House, the vitiated atmosphere escaping by the roof. But then the same authority, when I asked him what the narrow band of red colour that ran along the matting about a pace in front of the benches on either side meant, gravely told me that if any member when addressing the House stepped out beyond that line, Lord Charles Russell would instantly draw his sword, shout his battle-cry, "Who goes Home!"

and rus.h.i.+ng upon the offender bear him off into custody.

So you see it is difficult to know what to believe, and it is a pity people will not always say what they mean in plain English.

Midway down each row of benches is a narrow pa.s.sage that turned out to be "the gangway," of which you read and hear so much. I had always a.s.sociated "the gangway" with a plank along which you walked to somewhere--perhaps on to the Treasury Bench. But it is only a small pa.s.sage like a narrow aisle in a church. There is a good deal of significance about this gangway, for anybody who sits below it is supposed to be of an independent turn of mind, and not to be capable of purchase by Ministers present or prospective. Thus all the Irish members sit below the gangway, and so do Mr. Macdonald and Mr. Charles Lewis. It is an odd thing, Chiltern observes, that, notwithstanding this peculiarity, Ministries are invariably recruited from below the gangway. Sir Henry James sat there for many Sessions before he was made Solicitor-General, and there was no more prominent figure in recent years than that of the gentleman who used to be known as "Mr. Vernon Harcourt."

On the conservative side this peculiarity is less marked than on the Liberal, though it was below the gangway on the Conservative side that on a memorable night more than a quarter of a century ago a certain dandified young man, with well-oiled locks and theatrically folded arms, stood, and, glaring upon a mocking House, told them that the time would come when they _should_ hear him. As a rule, the Conservatives make Ministers of men who have borne the heat and burden of the day on the back Ministerial benches. With the Liberals the pathway of promotion, Chiltern says, opens from below the gangway.

Mr. Lowe came from there, so did Mr Goschen, Mr. Stansfeld, Mr.

Childers, Mr. Foster, and even Mr. Gladstone himself. The worst thing a Liberal member who wants to become a Cabinet Minister or a Judge can do is to sit on the back Ministerial benches, vote as he is bidden, and hold his tongue when he is told. He should go and sit below the gangway, near Mr Goldsmid or Mr. Trevelyan, and in a candid, ingenuous, and truly patriotic manner make himself on every possible occasion as disagreeable to the leaders of his party as he can.

I do not attempt to disguise the expectation I cherish of being some day wife of the First Lord of the Admiralty, or at least of the President of the Board of Trade; for there are few men who can, upon occasion, make themselves more disagreeable than Chiltern, who through these awkward bars I see sitting below the gangway on the left-hand side, and calling out "Hear, hear!" to Sir Stafford Northcote, who is saying something unpleasant about somebody on the front Opposition benches.

The front seat by the table on the right-hand side is the Treasury bench, and the smiling and obliging attendant tells me the names of the occupants there and in other parts of the House. The gentleman at the end of the seat with the black patch over his eye is Lord Barrington, who, oddly enough, sits for the borough of Eye, and fills the useful office of Vice-Chamberlain. Next to him is Sir H. Selwin-Ibbetson, Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, and whom I have heard genially described as "one of the prosiest speakers in the House." Next to him, with a paper in his hand and a smirk of supreme self-satisfaction on his face, is Mr. Cross, the Home Secretary.

He sits beside a figure you would notice wherever you saw it. The legs are crossed, the arms folded, and the head bent down, showing from here one of the most remarkable styles of doing the human hair that ever I beheld. The hair is combed forward from the crown of the head and from partings on either side, and brought on to the forehead, where it is apparently pasted together in a looped curl.

This is Mr. Disraeli, as I know without being told, though I see him now for the first time. He is wonderfully old-looking, with sunken cheeks and furrowed lines about the mouth and eyes. But his lofty brow does not seem to have a wrinkle on it, and his hands, when he draws them from under his arms and folds them before him, twiddling his thumbs the while, are as smooth and white as Coningsby's. He is marvellously motionless, sitting almost in the same position these two hours. But he is as watchful as he is quiet. I can see his eyes taking in all that goes on on the bench at the other side of the table, where right hon. gentlemen, full of restless energy, are constantly talking to each other, or pa.s.sing notes across each other, or even pulling each other's coat-tails and loudly whispering promptings as in turn they rise and address the House.

I observe that Mr. Disraeli does not wear his hat in the House, and Chiltern, to whom I mention this when he comes up again, tells me that he and some half-dozen others never do. Since Mr Gladstone has retired from the cares of office he is sometimes, but very rarely, able to endure the weight of his hat on his head while sitting in the House; but, formerly, he never wore it in the presence of the Speaker. The rule is to wear your hat in the House, and a very odd effect it has to see men sitting about in a well-lighted and warm chamber with their hats on their heads.

Chiltern tells me this peculiarity of wearing hats was very nearly the means of depriving Great Britain and Ireland of the presence in Parliament of Mr. John Martin. That distinguished politician, it appears, had never, before County Meath sent him to Parliament, worn a hat of the hideous shape which fas.h.i.+on entails upon our suffering male kindred. It is well known that when he was returned he declared that he would never sit at Westminster, the reason a.s.signed for this eccentricity being that he recognised no Parliament in which the member for County Meath might sit other than one meeting of the cla.s.sic ground of College Green. But Chiltern says that was only a poetical flight, the truth lying at the bottom of the hat.

"Never," Mr. Martin is reported to have said to a Deputation of his const.i.tuents, "will I stoop to wear a top hat. I never had one on my head, and the Saxon shall never make me put it there."

He was as good as his word when he first came to town, and was wont to appear in a low-crowned beaver hat of uncertain architecture. But after he had for some weeks a.s.sisted the process of Legislature under the shadow of this hat, the Speaker privately and in considerate terms conveyed to him a hint that, in the matter of hats at least, it was desirable to have uniformity in the House of Commons.

Mr. Martin, who, in spite of his melodramatic speeches and his strong personal resemblance to Danny Man in the "Colleen Nawn," is, Chiltern says, really one of the gentlest and most docile of men, straightway abandoned the nondescript hat and sacrificed his inclinations and principles to the extent of buying what he calls "a top hat." But he has not taken kindly to it, and never will. It is always getting in his way, under his feet or between his knees, and he is apparently driven to observe the precaution of constantly holding it in his hands when it is not safely disposed on his head. It is always thus held before him, a hand firmly grasping the rim on either side, when he is making those terrible speeches we read, in which he proves that John Mitchel is an unoffending martyr, and that the English, to serve their private ends, introduced the famine in Ireland.

Mr. Cowen, the member for Newcastle, shares Mr Martin's prejudices about hats, and up to the present time has not abandoned them. As we pa.s.sed through the lobby on our way to the Gallery, Chiltern pointed him out to me. He was distinguished in the throng by wearing a round hat of soft felt, and he has never been seen at Westminster in any other. But at least he does not put it on his head in the House; and it is much better to sit upon than the tall hats on the top of which excited orators not unfrequently find themselves when, hotly concluding their perorations and unconscious of having left their hats just behind them, they throw themselves back on the bench from which they had erewhile risen to "say a few words."

The gentleman on the left of the Premier is said to be Sir Stafford Northcote, but there is so little of his face to be seen through the abundance of whisker and moustache that I do not think any one has a right to speak positively on the matter. The smooth-faced man next to him is Mr. Gathorne Hardy. The tall, youthful-looking man on his left is Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, who, I suppose by instructions of the Cabinet, generally sits, as he does to-night, next to Mr. Ward Hunt. The Chief Secretary for Ireland is slim; not to put too fine a point on it, Mr.

Ward Hunt is not, and the two manage to seat themselves with some approach to comfort. The First Lord of the Admiralty further eases the pressure on his colleagues by throwing his left arm over the back of the bench, where it hangs like a limb of some monumental tree.

The carefully devised scheme for the disposition of Mr. Ward Hunt on the Treasury bench is completed by a.s.signing the place on the other side of him to Sir Charles Adderley. The President of the Board of Trade, Chiltern says, is understood to have long pa.s.sed the mental stage at which old John Willet had arrived when he was discovered sitting in his chair in the dismantled bar of the Maypole after the rioters had visited his hostelry. He is apparently unconscious of discomfort when crushed up or partially sat upon by his elephantine colleague, which is a fortunate circ.u.mstance.

The stolid man with the straight back directly facing Mr Disraeli on the front bench opposite is the Marquis of Hartington. The gentleman with uncombed hair and squarely cut garments on the left of the Leader of the Opposition is Mr Forster. The big man further to the left, who sits with folded arms and wears a smile expressive of his satisfaction with all mankind, particularly with Sir William Harcourt, is the ex-Solicitor-General. The duck of a man with black hair, nicely oiled and sweetly waved, is Sir Henry James. Where have I seen him before? His face and figure and att.i.tude seem strangely familiar to me. I have been shopping this morning, but I do not think I could have seen behind any milliner's or linendraper's counter a person like the hon. and learned gentleman the member for Taunton.

Beyond this doughty knight, and last at this end of the bench, is a little man in spectacles, and with a preternatural look of wisdom on his face. He is the Right Hon. Lyon Playfair, and is said to have, next to Mr. Fawcett, the most remarkably retentive memory of any man in the House. Chiltern says he always writes his lectures before he delivers them to the House, sending the ma.n.u.script to the _Times_, and so accurate is his recitation that the editor has only to sprinkle the lecture with "Hear, hears!" and "Cheers" to make the thing complete.

On the right-hand side of the Marquis of Hartington is Mr. Goschen. In fact, at the moment I happen to have reached him in my survey he is on his feet, asking a question of his "right hon. friend opposite." What a curious att.i.tude the man stands in! Apparently the backs of his legs are glued to the bench from which he has risen, a device which enables him, as he speaks, to lean forward like a human Tower of Pisa. He is putting the simplest question in the world to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but if he were a junior clerk asking his employer for the hand of his eldest daughter he could not look more sheepish. His hat is held in his left hand behind his back possibly with a view to a.s.sist in balancing him, and to avoid too much strain on the adhesive powers that keep the back of his legs firmly attached to the bench. With his right hand he is, when not pulling up his collar, feeling himself nervously round the waist, as if to make sure that he is there.

Next to him are Mr. Dodson and Mr. Campbell-Bannerman, and, with these planted between him and actual or aspirant leaders of the Liberal party, sits Mr. Lowe. I cannot see much of his face from here, for he wears his hat and at the moment hangs his head. A little later on I both saw and heard him speak and a splendid speech he made, going right to the heart of the matter, laying it bare. His success as a debater is a marvellous triumph of mind over material influences. It would be hard to conceive a man having fewer of the outward graces of oratory than Mr Lowe. His utterance is hesitating, sometimes even to stuttering, he speaks hurriedly, and without emphasis; his manner is nervous and restless, and he is so short-sighted that the literary quotations with which his speeches abound are marred by painful efforts to read his notes. Yet how he rouses the House, moving it to cheers and laughter, and to the rapid interchange of volleys of "Hear, hear" from opposite sides of the House, which Chiltern says is the most exhilarating sound that can reach the ear of a speaker in the House of Commons. Mr. Lowe sits down with the same abruptness that marked his rising, and rather gets into his hat than puts it on, pus.h.i.+ng his head so far into its depths that there is nothing of him left on view save what extends below the line of his white eyebrows.

To the right of Mr. Lowe I see a figure which, foreshortened from my point of view, is chiefly distinguishable by a hat and pair of boots.

Without absolute Quaker fas.h.i.+on about the cut of the hat or garments, there is a breadth about the former and a looseness about the latter suggestive of Quaker a.s.sociations. Perhaps if my idea were mercilessly a.n.a.lysed it would appear that it has its growth in the knowledge that I am looking down on Mr. Bright, and that I know Mr. Bright is of Quaker parentage. But I am jotting down my impressions as I receive them. Mr. Bright does not address the House to-night, but he has made one or two short speeches this Session, and Chiltern, who has heard them, speaks quite sorrowfully of the evidence they give of failing physical power. The orator who once used to hold the House of Commons under his command with as much ease as Apollo held in hand the fiery coursers of the chariot of the sun, now stands before it on rare occasions with a manner more nervous than that in which some new members make their maiden speech. The bell-like tones of his voice are heard no more; he hesitates in choosing words, is not sure of the sequence of his phrases, and resumes his seat with evident gratefulness for the renewed rest.

Chiltern adds that much of this nervousness is probably owing to a sensibility of the expectation which his rising arouses in the House, and a knowledge that he is not about to make the "great speech" looked for ever since he returned to his old place. But at best the matchless oratory of John Bright is already a tradition in the House of Commons, and it is but the ghost of the famous Tribune who now nightly haunts the scene of his former glories. Mr Gladstone was sitting next to Mr.

Bright, in what the always smiling and obliging attendant tells me is a favourite att.i.tude with him. His legs were stretched out, his hands loosely clasped before him, and his head thrown back, resting on the cus.h.i.+on at the back of the seat, so that the soft light from the illuminated roof shone full on his upturned face. It is a beautiful face, soft as a woman's, very pale and worn, with furrowed lines that tell of labour done and sorrow lived through.

Here again I am conscious of the possibility of my impressions being moulded by my knowledge of facts; but I fancy I see a great alteration since last I looked on Mr. Gladstone's face, now two years ago. It was far away from here, in a big wooden building in a North Wales town. He was on a platform surrounded by grotesque men in blue gowns and caps, which marked high rank in Celtic bards.h.i.+p. At that time he was the nominal leader of a great majority that would not follow him, and president of a Ministry that thwarted all his steps. His face looked much harder then, and his eye glanced restlessly round, taking in every movement of the crowd in the pavilion. He seemed to exist in a hectic flush of life, and was utterly incapable of taking rest. Now his face, though still thin, has filled up. The lines on his brow and under his eyes, though too deeply furrowed to be eradicable, have been smoothed down, and there is about his face a sense of peace and a pleasant look of rest.

Chiltern says that sometimes when Mr. Gladstone has been in the House this Session he has, during the progress of a debate, momentarily sprung into his old att.i.tude of earnest, eager attention, and there have been critical moments when his interposition in debate has appeared imminent. But he has conquered the impulse, lain back again on the bench, and let the House go its own way. It is very odd, Chiltern says, to have him sitting there silent in the midst of so much talking. This was specially felt during the debate about those Irish Acts with which he had so much to do.

Chiltern tells me that whilst the debate on the Irish Bill was going on there came from no one knows where, pa.s.sed from hand to hand along the benches, a sc.r.a.p of paper on which was written this verse from "In Memoriam":--

"At our old pastimes in the hall We gambol'd making vain pretence Of gladness, With an awful sense Of one mute Shadow watching all."

Although the gangway has a distinct and important significance in marking off _nuances_ of political parties, it appears that it does not follow as an inevitable sequence that because a man sits behind the Ministerial bench he is therefore a Taper or a Tadpole, or that because he takes up his quarters below the gangway he is a John Hampden. The distinction is more strongly marked on the Liberal side; but even there there are some honest men who usually obey the crack of the Whip. On the Conservative side the gangway has scarcely any significance, and though the Lewisian "Party," which consists solely of Charles, sits there, and from time to time reminds the world of its existence by loudly shouting in its ear, it may always be depended upon in a real party division to swell the Ministerial majority by one vote. The Scotch members, who sit chiefly on the Liberal side, spread themselves impartially over seats above and below the gangway. The Home Rule members, who also favour the Liberal side, sit together in a cl.u.s.ter below the gangway in defiant proximity to the Sergeant-at-Arms. They are rather noisy at times, and whenever Chiltern comes in late to dinner, or after going back stays till all hours in the morning, it is sure to be "those Irish fellows."

But I think the House of Commons ought to be much obliged to Ireland for its contribution of members, and to resist to the last the principle of Home Rule. For it is not, as at present const.i.tuted, an a.s.sembly that can afford to lose any element that has about it a tinge of originality, a flash of humour, or an echo of eloquence.

That, of course, is Chiltern's remark. I only know, for my part, that the Ladies' Gallery is a murky den, in which you can hear very little, not see much, and are yourself not seen at all.

CHAPTER XVI.

SOME PREACHERS I HAVE KNOWN.

MR. MOODY.

I heard Mr. Moody preach twice when he paid his first visit to this country. Borrowing an idea from another profession, he had a series of rehearsals before he came to London. It was in the Free Trade Hall, Manchester, and service opened at eight o'clock on a frosty morning in December. I had to stand during the whole of the service, one of a crowd wedged in the pa.s.sages between the closely-packed benches. Every available seat had been occupied shortly after seven, when the doors were thrown open. The galleries were thronged, and even the balconies at the rear of the hall were full to overflowing. The audience were, I should say, pretty equally divided in the matter of s.e.x, and were apparently of the cla.s.s of small tradesmen, clerks, and well-to do mechanics; that was the general cla.s.s of the morning congregation. But it must not therefore be understood that the upper cla.s.s in Manchester stood aloof from the special services of the American gentlemen. At the afternoon meeting, elegantly attired ladies and gentlemen, wearing spotless kid gloves and coats of irreproachable cut, struggled for a place in the mighty throng that streamed into the hall.

Punctually at eight o'clock the meeting was opened by one of the local clergymen, who prayed for a blessing on the day and the work, declaring, amid subdued but triumphant cries from portions of the congregation, that "the Lord has risen indeed! Now is the stone rolled away from the sepulchre, and the Kingdom of G.o.d is at hand." Mr. Moody, who sat at a small desk in front of the platform, advanced and gave out the hymn, "Guide us, O Thou Great Jehovah," the singing of which Mr. Sankey, sitting before a small harmonium, led and accompanied, the vast congregation joining with great heartiness.

"Mr. Sankey will now sing a hymn by himself," said Mr. Moody; whereupon there was a movement in the hall, a rustling of dresses, and a general settling down to hear something special.

The movement was so prolonged that Mr. Moody again stood up, and begged that every one would be "perfectly still whilst Mr. Sankey sang." There was another pause, Mr. Sankey waiting with marked punctiliousness till the last cougher had got over his difficulty. Presently the profound stillness was broken by the harmonium--"melodeon" is, I believe, the precise name of the instrument--softly sounding a bar of music. Then Mr.

Sankey suddenly and loudly broke in with the first line of the hymn, "What are you going to do, brother?"

Mr Sankey has a fairly good voice, which he used in what is called "an effective" manner, singing certain lines of the hymn _pianissimo_, and giving the recurrent line, "What are you going to do, brother?" _forte_, with a long dwelling on the monosyllable "do." When he reached the last verse, he, after a short pause, began to play a tune well known at these meetings, into which the congregation struck with a mighty voice that served to bring into stronger prominence the artificial character of the preceding performance. The words had a martial, inspiriting sound, and as the verse rolled forth, filling the great hall with a mighty musical noise, one could see the eyes of strong men fill with tears.

"Ho, my comrades! see the signal Waving in the sky; Reinforcements now appearing, Victory is nigh!

'Hold the fort, for I am coming,'

Jesus signals still; Wave the answer back to Heaven, 'By Thy grace we Will.'"

The subject of Mr. Moody's address was "Daniel"--whom he once, referring to the prophet's position under King Darius, dubbed "the Bismarck of those times," and always called "Dan'l." One might converse for an hour with Mr. Moody without discovering from his accent that he comes from the United States. But it is unmistakable when he preaches, and especially in the colloquies supposed to have taken place between characters in the Bible and elsewhere.