assurance that the County Council will never be in case to retire on a
cumulative income from them.

But apparently the English can do this only by laying the duty and
responsibility upon the imperial legislature. It was droll to sit there
and hear a body, ultimately if not immediately charged with the welfare
of a state conscious in every continent and the islands of every sea,
debating whether the municipal steamboats would not be too solely for
the behoof of the London suburb of West Ham. England, Scotland, Ireland,
Canada, India, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, with any of their
tremendous interests, must rest in abeyance while that question
concerning West Ham was pending. We, in our way, would have settled it
by the vote of a Board of Aldermen, subject to the veto of a mayor; but
we might not have settled it so justly as the British Parliament did in
concentrating the collective wisdom of a world-empire upon it.

The House of Commons took its tremendous responsibility lightly, even
gayly. Except for the dramatic division into government and opposition
benches, the spectacle was in no wise impressive. There was a restless
going and coming of members, as if they could not stand being bored by
their duties any longer, and then, after a brief absence, found strength
for them. Some sat with their hats on, some with their hats off; some
with their legs stretched out, some with their legs pulled in. One could
easily distinguish the well-known faces of ministers, who paid no more
heed, apparently, to what was going on than the least recognizable
members unknown to caricature. The reporters, in their gallery, alone
seemed to give any attention to the proceedings, but doubtless the
speaker, under his official wig, concerned himself with them. The people
apparently most interested were, like myself, in the visitors' gallery.
From time to time one of them asked the nearest usher who it was that