in the Gallery by the reporters of the Electric Press Association, who do those short summaries of the proceedings which are supplied by telegraph to the daily newspapers published in the provinces. These summaries are telegraphed from the House itself, and are sent so quickly and regularly, that I myself have known occasions on which the conclusion of a long debate has been received at a newspaper office three hundred miles from the House of Commons, ten minutes after the last speaker sat down. The whole of the newspaper offices in London are of course kept in constant communication with the House, so that editors and sub-editors know exactly, throughout the evening, what is going on there, and can at any moment provide for whatever emergencies may arise.

The Reporters' Gallery in the House of Lords is situated immediately beneath the Strangers' Gallery, and is much smaller and more inconvenient than that in the House of Commons. The truth is, however, that, alike in the estimation of newspapermen and of the general public, the proceedings in the upper chamber lack the interest and importance attaching to those in the lower. The reports of the proceedings of the Lords are, in consequence,

much more meagre, and the staff of reporters employed in producing them is much less numerous than that engaged in the House of Commons. Those who have spent an evening in the House of Lords must know that the reporter's work there is of a very disagreeable character. The chamber has been ingeniously constructed to afford those in it the least possible chance of hearing what is said, and the noble lords themselves are too much under the delusion that a conversational tone of voice is the highest style of oratory.

The annals of the Gallery are rich both in celebrated names and in amusing incidents. Though very many of those who work there are mere professional reporters, the end of whose ambition is reached when they have attained a seat in it, not a few are young men of talent, who take up parliamentary reporting as a means of support, whilst they are fighting their way at the bar, or in the higher branches of literature. Among those who have thus found the five or seven guineas a week -which is the usual stipend of the parliamentary reporter a very seasonable addition to their income, may be mentioned the names of one lordchancellor, Lord Campbell; two judges, Mr. Justice Talfourd, and Mr. Justice Hannen; and not a

few eminent Q.C.s, some of whom are now living, and occupy seats in the House of Commons, the proceedings of which they were glad to report in early days.

But the most celebrated of all the men who at one time or another took notes in the Gallery is the great novelist to whom we are indebted for the creation of Mr. Pickwick and Little Nell. There are still in the Gallery of the House veterans who remember the days when Charles Dickens sat by their side, as a member of the reporting staff of the 'Morning Chronicle,' which had then the crack corps of the House of Commons. Mr. Dickens has left us not a few reminiscences of his reporting days, some of which have been judiciously embodied by Mr. Forster in his life of the great novelist.

There are many good stories told respecting the Gallery. Many have doubtless heard of the old reporter who, in the midst of a dull debate, suddenly called out for the Speaker to favour the House with a song! Another gentleman, engaged in the House of Lords, having heard one statesman of repute state that another had introduced a bill 'with indecent haste,' headed his report with the words 'Charge of Indecency against Lord

So-and-so;' whilst a third, who had been told that profane language was on no account to be admitted into his reports, once destroyed the effect of one of O'Connell's finest pieces of oratory by printing the word 'damned,' when used in its most legitimate sense, in the form in which it usually appears in our police reports.

OUR SPECIAL WIRE.

A STAID newspaper proprietor of the old schoola representative of the times when advertisements were taxed, the stamp-duty reigned supreme, and fast-flying Hoes were unknown-would be greatly discomfited were he permitted to revisit the glimpses of the moon, and note the changes that have occurred since his day in the department of periodical literature. Change succeeds change so rapidly, that we have not time to reflect upon their significance; and it not unfrequently happens that we are plunged into, and become reconciled to, a state of things which but a short time. previous seemed unattainable. Perhaps in no sphere of modern energy is advancement more marked and astonishing than in that of the daily newspaper. The last ten years have created a reyolution. The penny paper of to-day is, for size, cheapness, and accuracy of information, as much superior to the bi-weekly sheets of fifteen years