ess is completed turns out on minute inquiry to be a little
startling. Of the six hundred and seventy members who form the present
House of Commons, how many does the Speaker suppose sat with him in the
Session of 1873?

[Illustration: THE SPEAKER.]

Mr. Peel himself was then in the very prime of life, had already been
eight years member for Warwick, and by favour of his father's old friend
and once young disciple, held the office of Parliamentary Secretary to
the Board of Trade. Members, if they paid any attention to the
unobtrusive personality seated at the remote end of the Treasury Bench,
never thought the day would come when the member for Warwick would step
into the Chair and rapidly establish a reputation as the best Speaker of
modern times.

[Illustration: SIR ROBERT PEEL.]

I have a recollection of seeing Mr. Peel stand at the table answering a
question connected with his department; but I noticed him only because
he was the youngest son of the great Sir Robert Peel, and was a striking
contrast to his brother Robert, a flamboyant personage who at that time
filled considerable space below the gangway.

[Illustration: SIR W. BARTTELOT.]

In addition to Mr. Peel there are in the present House of Commons
exactly fifty-one members who sat in Parliament in the Session of
1873--fifty-two out of six hundred and fifty-eight as the House of that
day was numbered. Ticking them off in alphabetical order, the first of
the Old Guard, still hale and enjoying the respect and esteem of members
on both sides of the House, is Sir Walter Barttelot. As Colonel
Barttelot he was known to the Parliament of 1873. But since then, to
quote a phrase he has emphatically reiterated in the ears of many
Parliaments, he has "gone one step farther," and become a baronet.

This tendency to forward movement seems to have been hereditary; Sir
Walter's father, long honourably known as Smyth, going "one step
farther" and assuming the name of Barttelot. Colonel Barttelot did not
loom large in the Parliament of 1868-74, though he was always ready to
do sentry duty on nights when the House was in Committee on the Army
Estimates. It was the Parliament of 1874-80, when the air was full of
rumours of war, when Russia and Turkey clutched each other by the throat
at Plevna, and when the House of Commons, meeting for ordinary business,
was one night startled by news that the Russian Army was at the gates of
Constantinople--it was then Colonel Barttel