THE LADIES'GALLERY.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 247, 11 July 1908, Page 11

THE LADIES'GALLERY.

The late Ladies' Gallery at the House was never a place to think of with sentimental affection, and looking back at it, even through tho glamourous smoke and flame that destroyed it, one is bound to confess that it had no charms. It was crowded, stuffy, and for all except the few who sat on the front seats, unhappy. Those who often visited it remember tlie inconveniences, the scramble for vacant front seats, when the Speaker entered and those chairs were free to tho first comers, the disappointment if ono had to sit on one of those hij*h-back seats, where it was almost impossible to hear or see, and the greater discomfort of the step where late comers had to sit, moving uneasily to let still later arrivals crush past, and craning between those in the front row to catch an occasional glimpse of what was happening on the floor of the House. Once in the Gallery it was difficult to get out again without disturbing a number of the other inhabitants, and many a kindly Wellington woman who has taken a visitor there, to give her an idea of political life, has been unutterably bored by some long discusion on a purely financial matter to which sho was forced to listen. It was sometimes very exciting to bo in the Ladies' Gallery, when some stormy debate was on, but that was only on raro occasions, and it was always risky to go down hoping to hear some such debate, as the duller matters .of which Parliament always has a large supply on hand, were likely to occupy the time of tho House till long after the Ladies' Gallery had been vacated. It seemed as if those most interesting things could only happen after supper. A long course of such dis-

appointments m'ado people rather chary about hastening down to tho House when there w.ia rumour of an excitement, but on those occasions the Gallery wa.s sure to be filled to overflowing with the less experienced, or tho ssnguine. , The temporary House has' accommodation for women spectators, but how changsi to the high gallery where they used' to set remote, and, theoretically unobserved! Apropos of that a pleasant little story was told of one member by another. The Ladies' Gallery had been one evening lost- in admiration of a speech delivered ,by a speaker who impressed them as much by his absolute unconsciousness and simplicity as by tho able manner in which ho stated his case. He was so absorbed in his subject that he had no thought of the admiring eyes that wore watching him. And afterwards one of ladies praised this single-mindedness to another member, who was 1 mean enough to say, "Oh, yes, I heard him say at dinnertime to a companion, 'I say, let me have that Tiuttonhole you're wearing. I aw-going to speak to the Ladies' Gallery to-night!'" In the new House the galleries run along tho wholo longth' of one side of the chamber, and are raioed only a few feet from the floor, so that the spectators are' practically on a level with those members who occupy tho sloping floor at the end. The Speaker's Gallery, to which a very limited number of ladies may obtain admission, is farthest removed from the Speaker, and to it men also go. There are only two rows of soats, stiff, and upright, the ones in front fastened together in the uncomfortable \style common to public buildings. So far very few women have vontured to the Gallery, and probably those who have gone have not liked the experience nnd the feeling that they wore practically sitting on the floor of the House. Not even a suffragette would care to be there, though probably a suffragette would have something to say about it, when she found that no waiting-room for women had boon provided, and that everyone requiring to see a member on business had to wait in tho front hall, and had there to interview him. At first a room was set aside for this purpose at the left of the hall, but this has been taken permanent possession of by some mere man, and a chair in tho corner of the hall is all that the woman suppliant can now look for.