made to punish any of the printers; and, though the standing orders
which forbid such publication have never been formally repealed, ever
since that time the publishers of newspapers and other periodicals have
been in the constant habit of giving regular details of the proceedings
of both Houses of Parliament. And one enterprising publisher, Mr.
Hansard, has for many years published a complete record of the debates
in both Houses, which is continually appealed to in the Houses
themselves, by members of both parties, as a manual of political and
parliamentary history.

The practice, as it now prevails, is one of the many instances of the
practical wisdom with which this nation often deals with difficult
subjects. The standing order is retained as an instrument which, in
certain cases, it may possibly be expedient to employ; as, in fact, it
has been employed in one or two instances in the present reign, when
matters have been under consideration which, however necessary to be
discussed, were of such a nature that the publication of the details
into which some speakers deemed it desirable to go was regarded by
others as calculated to be offensive to the taste, if not injurious to
the morals, of the community at large. But the very fact of such an
occasional enforcement of the standing orders under very peculiar
circumstances implies a recognition of the propriety of its more
ordinary violation; of the principle that publication ought to be the
general rule, and secrecy the unusual exception. And, indeed, it is,
probably, no exaggeration to say that such publication is not only
valuable, as the best and chief means of the political education of the
people out-of-doors, but is indispensable to the working of our
parliamentary system such as it has now become. The successive Reform
Bills, which have placed the electoral power in the hands of so vast a
body of constituents as was never imagined in the last century, have