(Speaker, very solemnly and decidedly,)--

"Strangers must withdraw!"

Is the gallery immediately cleared? Not a bit of it. Every man retains
his place. Some even seem, to my fancy, to look a sort of grim defiance
at the Speaker, as a bold Briton should. It is simply a form, which
many years ago had some meaning, and, having once been used, cannot be
discontinued without putting the Constitution in jeopardy. Five times
this evening, the minority, intent on postponing the debate, call for
a division,--and as many times are strangers gravely admonished to
withdraw.

There are two modes of adjourning the House,--by vote of the members,
and by want of a quorum. The method of procedure in the latter case is
somewhat peculiar, and has, of course, the sanction of many generations.
Suppose that a dull debate on an unimportant measure, numerous
dinner-parties, a fashionable opera, and other causes, have combined to
reduce the number of members in attendance to a dozen. It certainly
is not difficult to decide at a glance that a quorum (forty) is not
present, and I presume you are every instant expecting, in your
innocence, to hear, "Mr. Speaker, I move," etc. Pause a moment, my
impatient friend, too long accustomed to the reckless haste of our
Republican assemblies. Do not, even in thought, tamper with the
Constitution. "The wisdom of our ancestors" has bequeathed another and
undoubtedly a better mode of arriving at the same result. Some member
quietly intimates to the Speaker that forty members are not present.
That dignified official then rises, and, using his cocked hat as an
index or pointer, deliberately counts the members. Discovering, as the