h it
is hardly possible to understand how, on a night of great debate, with
a momentous division impending, the present chamber could be expected
to accommodate the full number of members entitled to claim seats
there. At all events, it is hardly possible to imagine any condition
of things arising which could call for any alteration in the
construction of the representative chamber which would be likely to
affect, in the slightest degree, the general character of that palace
of legislation which was planned and founded during the reign of
William the Fourth, was opened in the reign of Queen Victoria, and will
bear down to posterity the name of its architect, Sir Charles Barry.

Before leaving this subject it is of interest to note that the question
of providing accommodation for ladies desiring to listen to the debates
in the House of Commons {273} was brought up more than once during the
reign of William the Fourth. Miss Martineau, in her "History of the
Thirty Years' Peace," makes grave complaint of the manner in which the
proposal for the admission of ladies to hear the debates was treated
alike by the legislators who favored and by those who resisted the
proposition. The whole subject, she appears to think, was treated as a
huge joke. One set of members advocated the admission of ladies on the
ground, among other reasons, that their presence in the House of
Commons would tend to keep the legislators sober, and prevent them from
garnishing their speeches with unseemly expressions. Another set stood
out against the proposal on the ground that if ladies were allowed to
sit in a gallery in sight of the members, the result would be that the
representatives would cease to pay any real attention to the business
of debate, and would occupy themselves chiefly in studying the faces
and the dresses of the fair visitors, and trying to interchange glances
with the newly admitted spectators.

The conditions under which ladies may be permitted to listen to the
debates in the House of Commons form a subject of something like
periodical discussion up to the present day. There is, as everybody
knows, a certain number of seats set apart behind the Press gallery in
the House of Commons for the accommodation of women, who are admitted
by orders which members can obtain who are successful in a balloting
process which takes place a week in advance. About twenty members only
out of more than six hundred can win two seats each for a