"Commons" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... School were receiving a swimming lesson—these measures anticipating our achievements in Chicago by at least a decade and a half. The new Education Bill which was destined to drag on for twelve years before it developed into the children's charter, was then a storm center in the House of Commons. Miss Smith and I were much pleased to be taken to tea on the Parliament terrace by its author, Sir John Gorst, although we were quite bewildered by the arguments we heard there for church schools ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... had they been led immediately into a battle begun to their hands, they would have laid about them like furies; for there is nothing like victory to flush a young soldier. Thus, while the humour was high, and the fermentation lasted, away we marched, and, passing one of their great commons, which they call moors, we came to the river, as he called it, where our lieutenant was posted with his four men; 'twas a little brook fordable with ease, and, leaving a guard at the pass, we advanced to the top of a small ascent, from ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe
... of the Lords and Commons was published, for the taking away and demolishing of all altars and tables of stone, and for the removal of all communion tables from the east end of every church and chancel; and it was prescribed that such should be placed in some other fit and convenient ...
— The Principles of Gothic Ecclesiastical Architecture, Elucidated by Question and Answer, 4th ed. • Matthew Holbeche Bloxam
... the Commons, follow me; We will not leave one lord, one gentleman, Spare none but such as ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... not see enough of them. He would rise early, rousing them with insistent shouts, and urge them to make haste and prepare for a long walk; and all day they tramped along the roads, up the combes and down the combes, over commons, through woods, lingering in the lanes to pluck the wildflowers that grew profusely in the hedgerows, or listening to the mating birds that flew continually about them. They walked along the Roman Road to Lyme Regis in the east, and ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... suburbs were completely left behind, and the summer sunshine blazed through the window from the clear blue of a radiant June sky, Lady Ingleby leaned forward, watching the rapid unfolding of country lanes and hedges; wide commons, golden with gorse; fir woods, carpeted with blue-bells; mossy banks, overhung with wild roses, honeysuckle, and traveller's-joy; the indescribable greenness and soft fragrance of England in early summer; and, as she watched, a responsive light shone in her sweet grey ...
— The Mistress of Shenstone • Florence L. Barclay
... when the Earl of Oxford and the Lord Bolingbroke used to drink healths to the Tories, the Church of England considered those noblemen as the defenders of its holy privileges. The lower House of Convocation (a kind of House of Commons) composed wholly of the clergy, was in some credit at that time; at least the members of it had the liberty to meet, to dispute on ecclesiastical matters, to sentence impious books from time to time to the flames, that is, books written against ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... Prime Minister Tony BLAIR (since 2 May 1997) cabinet: Cabinet of Ministers appointed by the prime minister elections: none; the queen is a hereditary monarch; prime minister is the leader of the majority party in the House of Commons and must have the consent of ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... party, which presents such a formidable array of numbers, rank, wealth, talent, science, and literature, headed by the hero of Waterloo. This shade of the tory party appears to be headed in the House of Commons by Sir Robert Inglis, member for the Oxford University, and is supported, on most questions, by that most subtle and ingenious politician and fascinating speaker, Sir Robert Peel, with his numerous train of followers and admirers. Among those who support the distinguishing measures of this party ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... was granted, by the caprice of the Pope, the right to claim from the immediate or distant heirs of any testator, even at remote epochs, the sum of unpaid legacies for pious purposes. The Cardinal Arch-Priest and the Commons, who represent the pretended creditor, are judges between themselves and the presumed debtor. They search the archives; they open and they close testamentary documents not ever published; they arbitrarily burden ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... unknown of air, Out of all summer, from wave to wave, He'll perch, and prank his feathers fair, Jangle a glass-clear wildering stave, And take his commons there— ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... "you must be on pretty short commons—you must ha' bin out a fortnight and more. Me an' ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... for a magazine of smuggled merchandise. As for a gauger, I do not believe he valued the life of one at half a farthing. But that part of the coast of Lothian is to this day as wild a place, and the commons there as rough a crew, as ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... governed country, with its numerous Parliaments and Cabinets and large body of officials, very many of whom are entrusted with the most responsible duties, demanding no ordinary mental qualifications. [Footnote: It is a fact worthy of mention in this connection, that in the English House of Commons dissolved in 1880, 236, or more than a third out of 658, members were Oxford or Cambridge men, while about 180 were 'public school men,'—the 'public schools' being Eton and such high class institutions. In a previous English Cabinet, the ...
— The Intellectual Development of the Canadian People • John George Bourinot
... was a trying moment that which found him Standing alone beside his desolate hearth, Where all his household gods lay shivered round him:[39] No choice was left his feelings or his pride, Save Death or Doctors' Commons—so ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... appetites of the guests were in correspondence to the magnificence and solidity of the preparation—no piddling—no boy's-play, but that steady and persevering exercise of the jaws which is best learned by early morning hours, and by occasional hard commons. ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... Congress, in 1886, and its application was extended to our diplomatic relations by the unanimous concurrence of the Senate and House of the Fifty-first Congress in 1890. The latter resolution was accepted as the basis of negotiations with us by the British House of Commons in 1893, and upon our invitation a treaty of arbitration between the United States and Great Britain was signed at Washington and transmitted to the Senate for its ratification in January last. Since this treaty is clearly the result of ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... know much about its business. Those questions which excite popular attention and become party tests are inquired into; but most matters attract no attention and are not party tests. Only a few men of great industry and rare powers are familiar with these. In the British House of Commons, it is said, there are not more than thirty or forty such members. In either branch of our Congress the proportion is no larger. It is a great power to know that which others find it necessary to know; and if to this information ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... of the bill introduced into the House of Commons by Sir Andrew Agnew, and thrown out by that House on the motion for the second reading, on the 18th of May in the present year, by a majority of 32, may very fairly be taken as a test of the length to which the fanatics, of which the honourable Baronet is the distinguished leader, ...
— Sunday Under Three Heads • Charles Dickens
... write another one. Edwards was one of the essayists whose paper had not yet been examined, and he stood at this tutor's elbow while he read it over. "'After he had been some years in England Sir Elijah Impey was tried by Doctors' Commons.'" "House of Commons, boy," said Mr Cookson, "people are not impeached at Doctors' Commons, that's where wills are proved," and he made a correction,—"'and proved he hadn't murdered the rajah. And so Sir Philip Francis, the author of a book ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... not habitually try all political offences, they are competent to try them all. Another political body enjoys the right of impeachment before the house of lords: the only difference which exists between the two countries in this respect is, that in England the commons may impeach whomsoever they please before the lords, while in France the deputies can only employ this mode of prosecution against the ministers ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... dig it out of books in the reading-room of the British Museum, but he persevered, and finally became very skilful, so that when he was sent by one of the newspapers to report a debate in the House of Commons he did so extremely well that experts stated "there never was such a ...
— Historic Boyhoods • Rupert Sargent Holland
... 95 feet long, 30 feet wide, and 56 feet high to the apex of the stone groining, is lined by twelve "statues of Parliamentary statesmen who rose to eminence by the eloquence and abilities they displayed in the House of Commons," Fox and Pitt are here placed on opposite sides of the hall, "facing" each other after the manner they were wont to in ...
— The Youthful Wanderer - An Account of a Tour through England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany • George H. Heffner
... spoke every day with impunity, against the proceedings of the House; this won him a great reputation with all people who wished well to the King; and he was looked upon as the boldest champion the crown had in either House, so that such Lords and Commons who were willing to prevent the ruin of the kingdom, complied in a great familiarity with him, at a man resolute in their ends, and best able to promote them; and it may be, they believed his reputation at court so good, ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume II • Theophilus Cibber
... denounce—we can set people on—we can hold a man up—we can make his life a burden to him. And that's what we're going to do—with Sir Wilfrid Lang. He's one of this brutal Cabinet that keeps women in prison—one of the strongest of them. His speeches have turned votes against us in the House of Commons, time after time. We mean to be even with ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... The first is by special license, which enables two people to be married at any time and at any place; but this is very expensive, costing fifty pounds, and is only obtainable through an archbishop. Then there is the ordinary license, which can be procured either at Doctors' Commons or through a clergyman, who must also be a surrogate, and resident in the diocese where the marriage is to take place; both parties must swear that they are of age, or, if minors, that they have the consent of their parents. But to be married by ...
— Manners and Social Usages • Mrs. John M. E. W. Sherwood
... laborer, woodman and villein in the inn had all pointed to the wide-spread mutiny, and now his brother's name was spoken as though he were the very centre of the universal discontent. In good truth, the commons throughout the length and breadth of the land were heart-weary of this fine game of chivalry which had been played so long at their expense. So long as knight and baron were a strength and a guard to the ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... MALONE is not very popular in the House of Commons just now. When he rose to address a "Supplementary" to the WAR MINISTER he was so persistently "boo-ed" that the SPEAKER had to intervene to secure him a hearing. Mr. LOWTHER probably repented his kindness when ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, November 10, 1920 • Various
... had a good many, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer remarked in the House of Commons—was tied up in the Bank, ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... If she wins the election and claims the seat. Do you think the Cabinet will want him? Their latest addition compelled to appeal to the House of Commons to fight for him against his own womenfolk. [Grunts.] He'll be the laughing-stock of ...
— The Master of Mrs. Chilvers • Jerome K. Jerome
... established by Octavius Caesar—in effect, by force of arms, but seemingly by the consent of the Roman people. The commonwealth had received a deadly wound in the former civil wars betwixt Marius and Sylla. The commons, while the first prevailed, had almost shaken off the yoke of the nobility; and Marius and Cinna (like the captains of the mob), under the specious pretence of the public good and of doing justice on the ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... hills that stood sentinels on every hand about the valley in which New Geneva stood, the smell of the superabundant apple blossoms, and the tinkle and tankle and tonkle of hundreds of bells on the cows grazing on the "commons," as the open lots were called. On this almost painfully quiet morning D'Entremont noticed the people going one way and another to the early Sunday schools in the three churches. Just as he came to the pump that stood in front of the "public square" ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... might be expected, soon began to feel their privations acutely. Buffeted as they had been by the gale, they were completely exhausted, and needed rest and an abundance of nourishing food rather than to be placed on short commons. They bore their privations, however, with a quiet fortitude which ought to have silenced in shame the querulous complaints and murmurings of Mr Dale; though it did not. The most distressing part of it all was to hear poor little May Staunton piteously crying for ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... so far aroused on the subject of prison discipline, and the condition of criminals, that a Committee of the House of Commons was appointed to examine into evidence respecting the prisons of the metropolis. On the 27th of February, 1818, Mrs. Fry was examined by this Committee, relative to her personal experiences of this ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... stone church standing in it, one of the oldest churches in the State. There were a number of stores, interspersed with private dwellings, and everything wore a sort of leisurely aspect. A little farther up was another park,—commons, they were called then. The modest old houses and large gardens and fields gave it a still ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... Company, and made them perfectly lawful prizes. These commissions Kidd had most foolishly handed over to Lord Bellomont, and they could not be produced at the trial, although they had been exhibited before the House of Commons ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse
... they could not understand her desire for the open air, much less her craving for solitude. Until Ida's arrival, Isabel had never taken a walk for a walk's sake, and for the life of her she could not comprehend Ida's love of "trapesing" about the dusty lanes, and over the commons where there was always a wind, Isabel declared, to blow her hair about. If she went out, she liked to go up to London, and saunter about the hot streets, gazing in at the shop windows, or staring enviously at the "carriage ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... is right; but it is a pity that the accuracy insisted on is not greater, and required to a serious purpose. It is right that a false Latin quantity should excite a smile in the House of Commons: but it is wrong that a false English meaning should not excite a frown there. Let the accent of words be watched; and closely: let their meaning be watched more closely still, and fewer will do the work. A few words ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... excluded James from the naval service while he was Duke of York, because he was a Roman Catholic, had deprived the navy of its most influential and able friend. The greedy rapacity with which Charles II. had devoted the money assigned by the Commons for the support of the fleet to his own lustful and extravagant purposes, the favoritism and venality which he allowed in the administration of the Admiralty, and the neglect with which he viewed the representations of Pepys and others ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... Howard's tract, Dryden does not confine himself to answering his friend's arguments. He ridicules, what Shadwell had ridiculed before, Howard's coxcombical affectation of universal knowledge, makes sarcastic reference to an absurdity of which his opponent had been guilty in the House of Commons, mercilessly exposes his ignorance of Latin, and the uncouthness and obscurity of his English. The brothers-in-law afterwards became reconciled, and in token of that reconciliation Dryden cancelled ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... that had degenerated into a kitchen-garden for the Commons was rearranged and furnished with many specimens gathered ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... The history of England during this period is largely a record of strife and confusion. The struggle of the House of Commons against the despotism of kings; the Hundred Years War with France, in which those whose fathers had been Celts, Danes, Saxons, Normans, were now fighting shoulder to shoulder as Englishmen all; the suffering of the common people, resulting in the Peasant Rebellion; the barbarity of the nobles, ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... Punch,—I am told that Mr. ASQUITH considers that this has been a most unsatisfactory election. So do I. As you know, the principal function of the House of Commons nowadays is to provide amusing "copy" for the late editions of the evening papers and to give the "sketch"-writers a chance of exercising their pretty wits. As Mr. SPENCER LEIGH HUGHES once remarked in an after-dinner speech to Mr. BALFOUR, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 8, 1919 • Various
... to this doctrine. They came by it honestly through long lines of ancestral heritage. The republicanism of the seventeenth century in the American forests, as well as upon the floor of the English House of Commons, had asserted that private persons had the right to make and unmake kings. The republican theorists of the eighteenth century had insisted that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were the birthright of each ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... gentleman to buy a seat by bribery as to cheat at cards. I declare I think the card-sharper the least degraded person of the two. He doesn't encourage his inferiors to be false to a public trust. In short, my dear sir, everything wears out in this world—and why should the House of Commons be an exception to ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... Mr. Montague Mathew, in the house of commons, during the last session of parliament, that Mr. Mathew Montague was no more like him, than a horse chesnut was like ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor, Vol. I, No. 5, May 1810 • Various
... a tract of land three times as extensive as the plain of Montegnac. The damming of the Gabou and the works necessary to direct the water of the three valleys to the plain, ought not to cost more than sixty thousand francs; for the engineer discovered on the commons a quantity of calcareous soil which would furnish the lime cheaply, the forest was close at hand, the wood and stone cost nothing, and the transportation was trifling. While awaiting the season when the Gabou ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... they have long ceased to be regarded as exceptional. Looking at some of the more remarkable, it might almost be said that early encounter with difficulty and adverse circumstances was the necessary and indispensable condition of success. The British House of Commons has always contained a considerable number of such self-raised men- -fitting representatives of the industrial character of the people; and it is to the credit of our Legislature that they have been welcomed ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... I do not sit down to answer every paragraph of yours, by echoing every sentiment, like the faithful Commons of Great Britain in Parliament assembled, answering a speech from the best of kings! I express myself in the fulness of my heart, and may, perhaps, be guilty of neglecting some of your kind inquiries; but not from your very odd reason, that I do not read ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... daintie at his sizes, which she sayth is an ill example to soe manie young people, and becometh not one with soe little money in's purse: howbeit, I think 'tis not nicetie, but a weak stomach, which makes him loathe our salt-meat commons from Michaelmasse to Easter, and eschew fish of y'e coarser sort. He cannot breakfaste on colde milk like father, but liketh furmity a little spiced. At dinner, he pecks at, rather than eats, ruffs and reeves, lapwings, or anie ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... although elected to the House of Commons, will not attend. It is cruel, but the COUNT is convinced that the punishment is no more severe than the ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 21st, 1917 • Various
... does the ordinary English boy, thus taught to utter one ignorance in one of two accents, get and keep through life about the French Revolution? It is the notion of the English House of Commons with an enormous Radical majority on one side of the table and a small Tory minority on the other; the majority voting solid for a Republic, the minority voting solid for a Monarchy; two teams tramping through two lobbies with no difference between their methods and ours, except that (owing to ...
— Utopia of Usurers and other Essays • G. K. Chesterton
... mountaineers believed in "civil liberty in fee simple, and an open road to civil honors, secured to the poorest and feeblest members of society." The eastern element had for their ideal a government of interests for the people. They believed in liberty but that of kings, lords, and commons, not ...
— A Century of Negro Migration • Carter G. Woodson
... at tea in Armstrong's family dining-room, which adjoined the school commons, we were made aware of the return of the swimming party by the constant shuffle and tramp of feet through the hall and the noise of feeding in the next room. At our table were present Mrs. Armstrong, her sister (who had a frightened air when addressed and conversed in monosyllables), the parents ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 8 • Various
... toward the front Treasury Bench. Since Mr Balfour, now Lord Whittinghame, and Leader of the Conservative Party in the House of Lords, had made his memorable speech on the 12th of October 1899, informing the House of Commons and the world that the Ultimatum of the South African Republic had been rejected, and that the struggle for the mastery of South Africa was inevitable, no such momentous announcement had been made ...
— The World Peril of 1910 • George Griffith
... "The old dream time was pleasant, wasn't it? when we chose to be Archbishop of Canterbury one day and Lord Chancellor the next. To be Leader of the House of Commons is the present ambition. It is a most splendid thing"—the dreamer's eyes looked up into space with the old light in them—"a most splendid thing—to lead the House—to sway the House. But I don't know," he sighed, ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... minutes previously gone out at that very same door, and had turned round and said, 'Good night, my lord.' Yes, he had said, 'my lord;' - he, a man of birth and education, of the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, Barrister-at-Law, - he who had an uncle in the House of Commons, and an aunt almost but not quite in the House of Lords (for she had married a feeble peer, and made him vote as she liked), - he, this man, this learned recorder, had said, 'my lord.' 'I'll not wait till to-morrow to give you your title, my Lord Mayor,' says ...
— Master Humphrey's Clock • Charles Dickens
... of the towns in addition to the nobles and prelates, whom the king had long been accustomed to consult. At the same period that the French Estates General,[81] or national assembly, was taking form through the addition of representatives of the commons, England was creating its Parliament. The two bodies were, however, to have a very different history, as will become ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... an explicit announcement that church reform was now to be undertaken, not by the clergy, but by the people at large. On the other hand it was clear that it would be carried out in a spirit of loyalty to the Church. The commons forced from Bishop Fisher an apology for words which were taken as a doubt thrown ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... a storm broke out in the House of Commons against the principal officers of the navy, and some members demanded that they should be put out of their places. In the end they were ordered to be heard in their own defence at the bar of the House. The whole labour of the defence fell upon Pepys, but having made out his ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... exclusively by the producers, to-wit: the workmen in the towns and the farmers and mechanics in the country; and those they elect must belong to their own class. As these constitute the great bulk of the people, the body that represents them stands for the House of Commons in England, or the House of Representatives in America. The second branch is elected exclusively by and from the merchants and manufacturers, and all who are engaged in trade, or as employers of labor. ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... from the hotel. Midwinter writes to remind me, in the prettiest possible manner, that he will have lived long enough in the parish by to-morrow to be able to get our marriage-license, and that he proposes applying for it in the usual way at Doctors' Commons. Now, if I am ever to say it, is the time to say No. I can't say No. There is the plain truth—and there is ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... glad I am that you have seen my brave Senator, and seen him as I see him. All my days I have wished that he should go to England, and never more than when I listened two or three times to debates in the House of Commons. We send out usually mean persons as public agents, mere partisans, for whom I can only hope that no man with eyes will meet them; and now those thirsty eyes, those portrait-eating, portrait-painting eyes of thine, those fatal perceptions, have ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... upper story of the house. I well recollect reading in the Devonshire newspapers of the time an account similar to the above: but the first allusion to the circumstance was, I think, made by Lord Brougham in his celebrated speech in the house of Commons on the Reform Bill, in which he compared the Conservative opposition to the bill to be like the opposition of "Dame Partington and her mop, who endeavoured to mop out the waves ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 55, November 16, 1850 • Various
... improved, and here he remained till June 1671. These were busy years of writing, and by far the greater portion of his published work, if his letters and state papers be excluded, belongs to this time. First of all he answered the charge of high treason brought against him by the House of Commons in A Discourse, by Way of Vindication of my self, begun on July 24, 1668; he wrote most of his Reflections upon Several Christian Duties, Divine and Moral, a collection of twenty-five essays, some of considerable length, ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... as they were with the prestige of the Queen's public support of Harley and the newly appointed Tory Ministers, these issues were irresistible. Harley found himself with an "immoderate" House of Commons. The Tories held 320 seats, the Whigs only 150, and there were 40 seats whose votes were "doubtful."[2] Many of the new Parliamentarians were High-Church zealots, and most were anxious to turn the nation away from the policies of the Whig ...
— Atalantis Major • Daniel Defoe
... was interested in the working folk, and had published some poems reflecting on their hard life. Oastler took up the case of the children, twelve of whom with crooked legs he had exhibited in the House of Commons. Wildman's poem, descriptive of these poor young folk, was submitted to the Duke of Wellington. His grace commended the poet, saying England would be in a deplorable condition if this were to be a fair sample of the soldiers that were to be sent from her factories. The term "crooked ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... never has been a Debate in the House of Commons devoted to the question of Education itself. If the War can teach us any lessons, as a nation—and sometimes I doubt whether it will—it ought at least to teach us the essential vicious rottenness ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... followed by no less speedy a fall, and one act of indiscretion stripped the Athenians of all the advantages which they had acquired on the mainland of Greece. In every city of Greece there were always two parties, the wealthy and noble, called oligarchs, and the demos, or commons; and according as Spartan or Athenian influence was in the ascendant the balance of power in each city wavered between the nobles and the people, the Athenians favouring the Many, the Spartans the Few. Accordingly there ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... ask you, Mamma, about one thing that has all along puzzled me very much. What was the House of Lords about all this time that they let the House of Commons govern the country and have their own ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 17, 1917 • Various
... Commons, Monday, May 4.—Windbag SEXTON had fine opportunity to-night; made the most of it. SEYMOUR KEAY absent through greater part of sitting. Various rumours current in explanation of the happy accident. Influenza hinted at; but Grand Young ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 16, 1891 • Various
... turn to another method of investigation. During the last ten years four members have been expelled from the House of Commons. One of them was not expelled in the full sense of the word; he was, however, thrust by brute force from the precincts of the House. His name was Charles Bradlaugh, and he was an Atheist. But what was his crime? Simply this: he differed from his ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... born 14 November 1948) head of government: Prime Minister Anthony C. L. (Tony) BLAIR (since 2 May 1997) cabinet: Cabinet of Ministers appointed by the prime minister elections: none; the monarch is hereditary; the prime minister is the leader of the majority party in the House of Commons (assuming there is no majority party, a prime minister would have a majority coalition or at least a coalition that was not ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... broils, with the character of civil war in miniature, were of frequent occurrence. The submergence of the aristocratic element, the nobles, destroyed a natural balance of power between the bishop-prince and the people. The commons exerted power beyond their intelligence. Annual elections, party contests headed by rival demagogues kept the capital, and, to a lesser extent, the smaller towns of the little state ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... House of Commons, Monday, February 8.—The coming of Prince ARTHUR anxiously looked for as Members gathered for last Session of a memorable Parliament. When, in August last, he, with the rest of us, went away, OLD ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, Feb. 20, 1892 • Various
... hand, the prohibition, once declared, was sternly carried out by Zurich. With the rest, it was only form; with her, reality. By an embassy to Glarus she induced the Landsgemeine (commons) of that canton, with a majority, it is true, of only about thirty votes, to adopt it as a principle, and as soon as this was accomplished, she demanded of Wesen and the inhabitants of the Territory of Gaster, subjects of Glarus, but at the same ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... this up; two or three members of the House of Commons, wild, eccentric men, who would not betray their country to secure their re-election to some dirty borough, sided with outraged law; and by these united efforts a Commission was obtained. The Commission sat, and, being conducted with rare skill and determination, squeezed out of an ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... Ben Kirby and Tom Coper, Ben showing much verbal respect and outward deference for his umpire's judgment and experience, but managing to get the ball done his own way after all; whilst outside the shop, the rest of the eleven, the less-trusted commons, are shouting and bawling round Joel Brent, who is twisting the waxed twine round the handles of bats—the poor bats, which please nobody, which the taller youths are despising as too little and too light, and the smaller are abusing as too heavy and two large. Happy critics! winning ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 265, July 21, 1827 • Various
... term on the Committee on Elections under the Chairmanship of George W. McCrary. Election cases in the House up to that time were, as they always were in the English House of Commons and as they have been too often in the Senate, determined entirely by party feeling. Whenever there was a plausible reason for making a contest the dominant party in the House almost always awarded the seat to the man of its own side. There ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... am speaking to you from my own private sanctum at the House of Commons; and if you want to make sure, you can take my number, and ring ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... best, then Midhurst is the starting point, for no other spot has so much to offer: a quiet country town, gabled and venerable, unmodernised and unambitious, with a river, a Tudor ruin, a park of deer, heather commons, immense woods, and the Downs only three miles distant. Moreover, Midhurst is also the centre of a very useful little railway system, which, having only a single line in each direction, while serving the traveller, never annoys him by disfiguring the country or letting ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... Scotland yee may take, Tis the French pay, the Scot to them that tyes, That stopt, asunder quickly yee shall shake The French and Scots; to France then first say I, First, first, to France, then all the Commons cry. ...
— The Battaile of Agincourt • Michael Drayton
... a storm of wind and rain as I have almost ever seen, which necessarily confined us to the house; but we were fully compensated by Dr. Johnson's conversation. He said, he did not grudge Burke's being the first man in the House of Commons, for he was the first man every where; but he grudged that a fellow who makes no figure in company, and has a mind as narrow as the neck of a vinegar cruet, should make a figure in the House of Commons, merely by having the knowledge of a few forms, and being furnished with a little occasional ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... English sparrows, and rabbits, three most unfortunate importations, have multiplied with equal rapidity until serious alarm fills the minds of the colonists. But in England a special committee appointed by the House of Commons to investigate the character of the alleged pest has yet to learn whether the sparrow's services as an insect-destroyer do not outweigh the injury it does to ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... received principle of popular government, that the majority must rule. The seven voters of Old Sarum were allowed to return two members of Parliament, because this place,—once a Roman fort, and afterwards a sheepwalk,—many generations before, at the early casting of the House of Commons, had been entitled to this representation; but the argument for State Rights assumes that all these rights may be lodged in voters as few in number as ever controlled a ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... who are born to it: and, besides them, of men chosen by the people in the counties and towns, to speak and decide for them. The clergy have a meeting of their own called Convocation; and these three—Clergy, Lords, and Commons—are called the Three ...
— Young Folks' History of England • Charlotte M. Yonge
... progress. What applies to government officials applies also to members of Parliament, with the sole difference that they have had to recommend themselves to a constituency. This, however, only adds hypocrisy to the other qualities of a ruling caste. Whoever has stood in the lobby of the House of Commons watching members emerge with wandering eye and hypothetical smile, until the constituent is espied, his arm taken, "my dear fellow" whispered in his ear, and his steps guided toward the inner precincts—whoever, observing this, has realized that these are the arts ...
— Political Ideals • Bertrand Russell
... Parliament still endures in England. The Commons pursue their project; there are massacres in Ireland. The Earl of Strafford is ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... was under the personal rule of the Duke of Wellington, who had sorted out from his Cabinet any who were tainted with sympathy for reform; but, as the election of July which resulted in his resignation showed, the country, however one-sided its representation might have been in the House of Commons, had been long in a state of political ferment. This state of affairs, the gradual breaking up of the Tory party dating from the passing of the Catholic Emancipation Bill, the brewing social troubles, and the prospect of power ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... authority, winked at by a pious corporation, patronized by nobles and gentlemen supporters of the turf, and who are good enough, sometimes, to make laws for us plebeians in the Houses of Lords and Commons. There is Doncaster, with policemen to keep order, and admit none but "respectable" people—subscribers, who fear Heaven and honour the Queen. Are you aware, my Lord Chief-Justice, are you aware, Mr Attorney, Mr Solicitor-General, have you the slightest notion, ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... answered Billy Blueblazes. "For my part, I don't like this campaigning business. It may be very pleasant over a tolerable good road and plenty to eat, but I don't like having to climb these hills and to exist on short commons." ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... possessed great power in the State, is what nobody will dispute. The King, on the other hand, can create new peers, and can dissolve Parliaments. William sustained severe mortifications from the House of Commons, and was, indeed, unjustifiably oppressed. Anne was desirous to change a ministry which had a majority in both Houses. She watched her moment for a dissolution, created twelve Tory peers, and succeeded. Thirty years later, the House of Commons drove Walpole from his seat. ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... a bear-garden or the House of Commons? Take that man out. Give him five years and ...
— Much Darker Days • Andrew Lang (AKA A. Huge Longway)
... get into the House of Commons. You will have to take your share in making laws which may prove a blessing or a curse to millions of men. But you shall not hear one word respecting the political organization of your country; the ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... hear, O ye swains, 'tis a tale most profane, How all the tyrannical powers, Kings, Commons and Lords, are uniting amain, To cut down this guardian of ours; From the east to the west blow the trumpet to arms, Through the land let the sound of it flee, Let the far and the near, all unite with a cheer, In ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various
... without the help of boats and lighters. The chief streets of the town come down to the head of the pier. At the upper end of it is the town-house, or exchange, a fine building, containing, besides the walk for merchants, the council-chambers, the house of commons, and a spacious room for the courts of justice. The exchange is surrounded with booksellers' shops, who have a good trade. There are several printing-houses, where the presses are generally full of work, which is in a great ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Bampfylde Moore Carew • Unknown
... refused to believe the rumour; the moors, he argued with himself, had always been commons and commons they must remain. Yet the rumour persisted and gradually began to work like poison in his mind. He was too proud to mention the matter to the farmers when they came up for the autumn salving of the sheep, but a constraint in their manner deepened his suspicions, and all through ...
— Tales of the Ridings • F. W. Moorman
... with twelve eggs,—three Brahma, four common, and five Leghorn; Pinky with thirteen eggs (as she weighs four ounces more than her sister), of which three were Leghorn, five common, and five Brahma. During the twenty-second and twenty-third of April (same year) Toppy hatched out four Brahmas, two commons, and three Leghorns, while her sister, on these days and the morning of the day following, hatched two Leghorns, six commons, and only one Brahma. Now, could Toppy, who had only three Brahma eggs, and hatched out four of that breed, have exchanged eggs with her sister, ...
— Rudder Grange • Frank R. Stockton
... upon Lord Gambier for his failure to assist Cochrane in the action in the Basque Roads, the admiralty went so far as to forge charts, and so to show that the admiral could not come to Cochrane's assistance, and Gambier was not only acquitted, but received a vote of thanks from the House of Commons for the victory in which he had taken no part. For four years Lord Cochrane received no appointment, but at the close of 1813 his uncle, Sir Alexander Cochrane, was selected for the command of the fleet on the North American station, and nominated ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... man, when beheld in his domestic career. It is, indeed, a source of deep thankfulness, the admirer of Burke's genius in public, has no reason to blush for his character in private; and that when we have listened to his matchless oratory upon the arena of the House of Commons, we have not to mourn over dissipation, impurity, and depravity amid the circles of private history. Our theory, then, is, that beyond what his distinctive genius inspired, Burke's wondrous power of enunciating everlasting principles and of associating the ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... hand, he turned his attention to the House of Commons. The old Whigs had set an example, which George was shrewd enough to follow. Walpole and Newcastle had succeeded in giving England one of the most peaceful and prosperous governments within in the previous history of the nation, but their ...
— Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America • Edmund Burke
... fighting and intriguing abroad, absorbed in the affairs of his Castilian succession; Gloucester and his friends at home had everything their own way; the Earl of Suffolk was dismissed from the woolsack, and impeached by the Commons; and although Richard at first stood out courageously for the friends of his uncle Lancaster, he was constrained, by the refusal of supplies, to consent to the proceedings of Gloucester. A commission was wrung from him, under protest, appointing Gloucester, Arundel, and twelve other Peers and ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... their consent. It is iniquitous (iniquum est, says the maxim) that freemen should not have the free disposal of their own effects, and whatever is iniquitous can never be made lawful by any authority on earth, not even by the united authority of king, lords, and commons, for that would be contrary to the eternal laws of God, which ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... know the House of Commons know that it has its moods. At times it is grave, earnest, thoughtful. At other times it is swept with emotion which comes at it in waves. Or at times, again, it just seems to sit there as ...
— Winsome Winnie and other New Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock
... remorse or repentance, in fact, an awakening of the "Nonconformist Conscience," in a somewhat unlikely quarter, looked about him, rubbed his hands, wept, smiled, wept again, and then mechanically uttering a guttural "Hear! Hear!" (as though he were listening, in the House of Commons, to the jocund HARCOURT, or the jocular LAWSON, or the robustious T. W. RUSSELL, or the astute CAINE) and then, walking across the room to a well-remembered pigeon-hole, took thence an official-looking scroll, sat down, formally unfolded it, cleared his throat, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, March 25, 1893 • Various
... a joke in the House of Commons. It was a thin House, and a very thin joke; something about the Anglo-Saxon race having a great many angles. It is possible that it was unintentional, but a fellow-member, who did not wish it to be supposed that he was asleep because his eyes were shut, laughed. ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... humane Walpole was always unwilling to shed blood; and his influence prevailed. When Parliament met, the evidence against the bishop was laid before committees of both houses. Those committees reported that his guilt was proved. In the Commons a resolution, pronouncing him a traitor, was carried by nearly two to one. A bill was then introduced which provided that he should be deprived of his spiritual dignities, that he should be banished for life, and that no British subject should ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... had sprung a tuft of blue harebells, waving as wild and free as if they grew among the bonny red heather on the glorious hills of the North, or shook their tiny bells to the breeze on the broom-encircled commons of England. ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... and, with Dinner-time, Uncle Hewlett and Ralph, Squire Paice and Mr. Milton. We had a huge Sirloin, soe no Feare of short Commons. I was not ill pleased to see soe manie: it gave me an Excuse for holding my Peace, but I coulde have wished for another Woman. However, Father never thinks of that, and Mother will soone be Home. After Dinner the elder Men went to the Bowling-greene ...
— Mary Powell & Deborah's Diary • Anne Manning
... an impoverished colony. In the former country only a few voices, comparatively, are raised in expostulation; and no one cares about them, if Mr. Hume could be gagged, and the other patriots in the Commons. But in a colony! threaten to raise the price of sugar by the imposition of another half-penny per pound, and the whole land will be heaved as though by an earthquake. Not only will the newspapers pour forth a terrific storm of ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... want to move the world with my pen or the point of my toe; I want to write, dance, sing, act, paint, sculpt, fence, row, ride, swim, hunt, shoot, fish, love all men from young rustic farmers to old town roues, lead the Commons, keep a salon, a restaurant, and a zoological garden, row a boat in boy's costume, with a tenor by moonlight alone, and deluge Europe and Asia with blood shed for my intoxicating beauty. I am primeval, savage, unlicensed, unchartered, unfathomable, unpetticoated, ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... change every four or five years the visible head of our world. We are not now remarkable for the highest sort of ambition; but we are remarkable for having a great deal of the lower sort of ambition and envy. The House of Commons is thronged with people who get there merely for "social purposes," as the phrase goes; that is, that they and their families may go to parties else impossible. Members of Parliament are envied by thousands merely for this frivolous glory, ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... Grey. His position and his temperament alike, however, made him a thoroughly independent supporter of any party to which he attached himself. When, therefore, the injury to health arising from the late hours in the Commons led him in 1844 to seek elevation to the Upper House in the right of his father's barony, Sir Robert Peel, in acceding to his request, had the satisfaction of at once freeing himself from the possible effects of his "candid friendship" ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... Skettles, Lady Skettles, and Master Skettles. Master Skettles was to be a new boy after the vacation, and Fame had been busy, in Mr Feeder's room, with his father, who was in the House of Commons, and of whom Mr Feeder had said that when he did catch the Speaker's eye (which he had been expected to do for three or four years), it was anticipated that he would rather ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... proportion of the land devoted to grazing purposes, that in France or Germany would be found divided into small farms, and every foot cultivated. Villages are farther apart, and are invariably adjacent to large commons, on which roam flocks of noisy geese, herds of ponies, and cattle with horns that would make a Texan blush - the long horned roadsters of Hungary. The costumes of the Hungarian peasants are both picturesque and novel, the women and girls wearing ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... of the finances, the different branches of commerce, the politics that prevail, and the connexions that subsist among the different powers of Europe; for on all these subjects the deliberations of a House of Commons occasionally turn. ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... it is alleged that he had his commons sent to his private room, instead of taking his meals with the brethren in the refectory. When he died he was buried with great honour, "as ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Saint Albans - With an Account of the Fabric & a Short History of the Abbey • Thomas Perkins
... suppose so," drawled Jane. "I've heard it said this John Viner's father ran all the way from the Commons in Boston, to the foot of State Street, to get rid of a dun against this very son, who had his own misfortunes when he ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper
... American statesman, who has already made his mark upon the land of his birth, considers the influence of a debating society to which he belonged in his youth, among the first stimulating causes of the course he has pursued. The highly distinguished English statesman, Canning, organized a House of Commons among his play-fellows at school, where a speaker was regularly elected, and ministerial and opposition parties were formed, and debates carried on, in imitation of Parliament. Canning became the star of this juvenile organization, and there began to ...
— The Bobbin Boy - or, How Nat Got His learning • William M. Thayer
... be found in the history of the British Parliament were shown not to exist in fact; that the farthest the English Parliament had ever gone was to refuse subsidies to the Crown, the princes, or to maintain royalty, or to vote supplies to carry on a foreign war not approved by the House of Commons; that in no case had the life of the nation been threatened as the penalty for the Crown's not approving laws passed by the House of Commons, and that the English statutes provided for preserving peace and order by the ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... was England. Whiniver ye hear iv anny counthry helpin' us, ye think it is England. That's because England has helped us so much in th' past. Says Lord Cranburne in reply to a question in th' House iv Commons: 'I am reluctantly foorced be mesilf to blushin'ly admit that but f'r us, people on their way to China to-day wud be gettin' up an' lookin' over th' side iv th' ship an' sayin', "This is where America used to be." Whin war was first discussed, mesilf ...
— Observations by Mr. Dooley • Finley Peter Dunne
... acquired the nickname of Presidente de Salons; and it would appear, that, with her resolute air, her loud voice, and her violent opinions, she really did seem like a kind of speaker of some House of Commons disguised as a woman. That the management of a salon was no easy affair the following anecdote will prove. The Duchesse de Duras one day asked M. de Talleyrand what he thought of the evening reunions at her house, and after a few words of praise, he added: "But you are too vivacious ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... West, from the excise office, being asked in the Committee of the House of Commons, appointed, 1819, to examine and report on the petition of several inhabitants of London, complaining of the high price and inferior quality of beer, produced the following seized articles:—"One bladder of honey, one bladder ...
— A Treatise on Adulterations of Food, and Culinary Poisons • Fredrick Accum
... Cranstoun's return from Southampton, my mother went up to London, in order to ask advice for a complaint in her breast, and took me along with her. Upon our arrival there, we went to her brother's, Mr. Henry Steven's, in Doctors' Commons, where we resided all the time we remained in town. I had before apprized Mr Cranstoun of our intended journey; and he waited upon me the next morning after our arrival at my uncle's. Hither he came every day to visit me, whilst we stayed in ...
— Trial of Mary Blandy • William Roughead
... his design. And, sir, will the American spirit solely relieve you when this happens? I would rather infinitely—and I am sure most of this convention are of the same opinion—have a king, lords, and commons, than a government so replete with such insupportable evils. If we make a king, we may prescribe the rules by which he shall rule his people, and interpose such checks as shall prevent him from infringing them; but the president, in the field, at the head of his army, can prescribe ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... which was made of turf. Tommy, who had never seen such a fire, could not help inquiring about it, and the good woman told him that poor people like her were unable to purchase coals; "therefore," said she, "we go and pare the surface of the commons, which is full of grass and heath and other vegetables, together with their roots all matted together; these we dry in small pieces, by leaving them exposed to the summer's sun, and then we bring them home and put them under the ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... so seldom afflicted with Mens Distempers, deriv'd from the Causes above-mentioned: And if the many Diseases of Horses seem to [80]contradict it, I am apt to think it much imputable to the Rack and Manger, the dry and wither'd Stable Commons, which they must eat or starve, however qualified; being restrained from their Natural and Spontaneous Choice, which Nature and Instinct directs them to: To these add the Closeness of the Air, standing in an almost continu'd Posture; besides the fulsome Drenches, unseasonable ...
— Acetaria: A Discourse of Sallets • John Evelyn
... been faithful to King Charles II. during his exile, and at the Restoration he received the reward of his services. He sat in the House of Commons from then until his death, twice representing Westminster. He was made Paymaster-General of the Forces and one of the Lords of the Treasury. He seems to have been an active-minded man, with considerable business propensity. He devised a scheme for paying the troops ...
— Chelsea - The Fascination of London • G. E. (Geraldine Edith) Mitton
... Outlanders number 80,000, and of the Outlanders 30,000 are given as of British descent—which figures the authorities regard as much nearer the truth than Mr. Chamberlain's statements made in the House of Commons. ...
— A Century of Wrong • F. W. Reitz
... the window, and stood gazing absently across the commons. "Do you know, Billy," she said suddenly, "I 've got the craziest notion in my head. I'd jes' give anythin' to see the show at the ...
— Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch • Alice Caldwell Hegan
... have noted a considerable amount of disturbance in the House of Commons during the past three weeks. Various reasons have, as usual, been advanced to account for this phenomenon, one eminent politician having gone so far as to hint darkly at the existence of Cave-men (or ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, July 5, 1890 • Various
... were literally thousands dying of starvation. Cheap food was far more difficult to get at there than in England, and at length at the close of the year Sir Robert Peel said he would repeal the Corn Laws altogether. In 1846 the Bill with this end in view passed through the House of Commons and House of Lords and became law. But the consequence of this measure was in effect the signal for Peel's going out of office, and his place was taken by Lord ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... defied. Topsfield went so far as to claim not only unoccupied lands, but lands within fence, with houses on them, and families within them, and orchards and growing fields around them, as part of its "commons;" and it disputed the titles given by Salem. Of course, the question went, in various forms, into the county courts; but sometimes, there is reason to believe, it came to a rougher arbitrament, in the depths of the ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... just as if nothing had happened; for, in my time, we hanged at eight and breakfasted at a quarter after, so that without much hurry we were able to finish our muffins just in time for the cutting down at nine. I had to go to the House of Commons with a petition, and to Court with an address—trying situations for one of the Scroppses—however, the want of state in parliament, and the very little attention paid to us by the members, put me quite at my ease at Westminster; ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 380, July 11, 1829 • Various
... invasion. Not a moment was lost in despatching 5,000 troops to Portugal. This resolution was formed by the cabinet on the 9th, approved by the king on the 10th, and communicated to parliament on the 11th. On the evening of the 12th Canning was able to inform the house of commons that the troops were already on the ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... Wiggs and the boys brought it to the new home and skilfully placed it at the front end of the side porch. But the roof gave the house its chief distinction; it was the only tin roof in the Cabbage Patch. Jim and Billy had made it of old cans which they picked up on the commons. ...
— Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch • Alice Caldwell Hegan
... Presidential orations, the success of the evening was Professor BUTCHER's speech. His audience were delighted at being thus "butchered to make" an artistic "holiday." Prince ARTHUR BALFOUR expressed his regret that "the House of Commons did not possess a Hanging Committee." Hasn't it? Don't we now and again hear of a Member being "suspended" for some considerable time? On such occasions, the whole House is a Hanging Committee. There was one notable omission, and yet for days the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 102, May 7, 1892 • Various
... news spread through the House of Commons; but at nine men in the inner lobbies were gossiping, not so much upon how far Russia, while ostensibly upholding the Shah, had pulled the strings by which the insurgents danced, as upon the manner in which the 'St. Geotge's Gazette', the Tory evening ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... was chosen member of parliament for East-Grimstead, and distinguished himself while he was in the House of Commons. The sprightliness of his wit, and a most exceeding good-nature, recommended him very early to the favour of Charles the IId, and those of the greatest distinction in the court; but his mind being more turned to books, and polite conversation, than public business, he totally declined ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. III • Theophilus Cibber
... some years afterward perpetrated the same witticism on the occasion of Edmund Burke's leaving the House of Commons in a rage, because he was interrupted in one of his great speeches by a ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... turned with disgust or terror from that image of despotic pride and violence, might behold at no great distance the piles of Westminster, the seats of law and legislation, where the irrepressible spirit of freedom in the bosom of the Commons was still nursing its resentment or muttering its remonstrances at seasons of the deepest gloom and depression. Henry VIII. might have heard that voice mingling with the groans of his victims; Charles II. ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... her to her pavilion; [543] whither after a little came the Sultan and they sat down and the slave-girls brought sherbets. [544] So they drank and the Sultan commanded that all the realm should be decorated for Alaeddin's victory over the enemy; whilst it became [a saying] with the commons and the troops and the folk, all of them, "Allah in heaven and Alaeddin on earth." and they loved him yet more, having regard not only to the excess of his bounty and munificence, but to his knightly prowess, in that he had done ...
— Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp • John Payne
... The majority of the twenty candidates displayed little knowledge of baseball. School-boys on the commons could have beaten them. They were hooted and hissed by the students, and before half the innings were played the bleachers and stands were empty. That was what old Wayne's students thought of ...
— The Young Pitcher • Zane Grey
... brother Toby, this poor Bull of mine, who is as good a Bull as ever p..ss'd, and might have done for Europa herself in purer times—had he but two legs less, might have been driven into Doctors Commons and lost his character—which to a Town Bull, brother Toby, is the very same ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... practically a British painter. Copley was more of an American than West, and more of a painter. Some of his portraits are exceptionally fine, and his figure pieces, like Charles I. demanding the Five Members of House of Commons are excellent in color and composition. C. W. Peale (1741-1827), a pupil of both Copley and West, was perhaps more fortunate in having celebrated characters like Washington for sitters than in his art. Trumbull (1756-1843) ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Painting • John C. Van Dyke
... efforts—the chief reason why they shrilly upbraided him for his insular egotism. Certainly his attitude was far from romantic; but surely, after the sharp lesson which he had received from the House of Commons in the spring of 1791 during the dispute with Russia, caution was needful; and he probably discerned a truth hidden from the emigres, that an invasion of France for the rescue of the King and Queen would seal their doom and increase the welter ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... off the butcher and the grocer, pawned my watch and bicycle and my father's mackintosh, and I worked. I really did work, and went on short commons of sleep. Critics have complained about the swift education one of my characters, Martin Eden, achieved. In three years, from a sailor with a common school education, I made a successful writer of him. The critics say this is impossible. Yet I ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... to the equity of the senate when they should be laid before them, at a time when part of their effects might be discovered, and when, therefore, no false representations could be used to mislead their judgment. They knew the zeal of the commons for the great cause of universal liberty; they knew that their measures had no other tendency than the promotion of that cause, and, therefore, they confidently formed those expectations which have not deceived them, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson
... passed, and there was no return of repose. Meg looked worn and nervous, the babies absorbed every minute of her time, the house was neglected, and Kitty, the cook, who took life 'aisy', kept him on short commons. When he went out in the morning he was bewildered by small commissions for the captive mamma, if he came gaily in at night, eager to embrace his family, he was quenched by a "Hush! They are just asleep after worrying all day." If he proposed a little amusement at ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... over Koritza to the Dutch gendarmerie officers under the International Control, on March 1, 1914. Had the Powers meant honestly by Albania they would have sent a force to clear the land of the lurking Greek bands of soldiery. But in spite of several questions asked in the House of Commons, Cretan and Greek komitadjis continued to land at Santa Quaranta, the Greek Government persistently denying all knowledge. "There are none so blind as those ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith
... by his influence in the House of Commons to carry things agreeably to his Majesty's wishes" (Whalley); one ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson |
