VENISON FOR SPEAKER.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 261, 3 November 1928, Page 18 (Supplement)

VENISON FOR SPEAKER.

e LAST OF ANCIENT PERQUISITES CUSTOMS DYING OUT. Eecent references to the ancient perquisites of the Speaker of the House of Commons have led to the discovery that only one of them remains. Many have been under the impression that the Speaker received each Christmas a width of broadcloth from the Cloth workers' Company, but it seems that this custom was abandoned many years ago. "The only perquisite—if it can be called a perquisite—which existed in my time," says Viscount Ullswater, "came to me in the form of a Royal Warrant entitling me to half a buck, or doe, from Windsor. "Some Speakers do not make use of the warrant, but I like venison, and I always availed myself of the warrant. "I used to send the warrant to the proper quarter with a sovereign—that was the custom—and I always got the venison." Lord Ullswater recalled the old practice of presenting each new Speaker with a service of plate. "When a new Speaker takes office he is given an inventory of the plate, and when he goes out of office he has to deliver up all that is on the list. "A number of things had been stolen when I went out of office, and I had to bear the expense of supplying others."