not possibly be more than three or four reasons for or against the
motion, and as the knowledge that what the intending orator had to
urge had been urged a dozen times before on that very night never
deterred him from urging it again, the same arguments, diluted,
muddled, and mispresented, recurred with the most wearisome
iteration.

The public outside knew nothing or very little of the real House of
Commons, and the manner in which time was squandered there, for the
reports were all of them much abbreviated. In fact, I doubt whether
anybody but the Speaker, and one or two other persons in the same
position as myself, really felt with proper intensity what the waste
was, and how profound was the vanity of members and the itch for
expression; for even the reporters were relieved at stated intervals,
and the impression on their minds was not continuous. Another evil
result of these attendances at the House was a kind of political
scepticism. Over and over again I have seen a Government arraigned
for its conduct of foreign affairs. The evidence lay in masses of
correspondence which it would have required some days to master, and
the verdict, after knowing the facts, ought to have depended upon the
application of principles, each of which admitted a contrary
principle for which much might be pleaded. There were not fifty
members in the House with the leisure or the ability to understand
what it was which had actually happened, and if they had understood
it, they would not have had the wit to see what was the rule which
ought to have decided the case. Yet, whether they understood or not,
they were obliged to vote, and what was worse, the constituencies
also had to vote, and so the gravest matters were settled in utter
ignorance. This has often been adduced as an argument against an
extended suffrage, but, if it is an argument against anything, it is