WITHOUT PREJUDICE

Dominion, Volume 16, Issue 53, 25 November 1922, Page 4

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

NOTES AT RANDOM

(By

T.D.H.)

It seems to bo a question whether Napier’s* present member is to be reinvigorated and Reformed or done Brown. “Back to Seddon” I suppose means that anywhere is better Xthan under Wilford. Although the Irish Republicans blew the Dublin Law Courts to bits, enough remains for them to appeal to the law Co save Mr. Erskine Childers.

Franco has no money to build warships, but that does not prevent hgr from being furiously indignant with t Washington for preventing her from doing what she does not want to do.

The scramble for seats in the House of Commons, besides involving delicate questions of precedence, is complicated by the fact than there are not enough seats to go round. When the House, was designed by Sir Charles' Barry it was considered that,seats for three-fourths of the members would suffice. The actual number who can be seated is 476, but not mors than 300 can obtain places in which they can conveniently see, hear, and speak. As there are 615 members of the House at present, this means 'standing room only for quite a considerable number when there is a full House. Forty years back ono member, Mr. Alitehell Henry, who was squeezed, right off-the floor, addressed the Speaker from the gallery, and ! asked for a ruling as to the practice of members monopolising seats by placing hats on them. Did it have to be the member’s real working hat, or would a colourable imita-« tion of it suffice ? Could a member deposit one hat aiffi walk away and do his business with another hat? The Speaker refused to go into fine points on the question of hats, but ruted that no member could retain a place for the day by leaving a card or a pair of gloves on it, but it was his if he left his hat there before prayers.

The quarrel for precedence between the rival party leaders is a reminder that., even the tranquillity of the Church in past days has been ruffled by similar disputes, which, unhappily occur in all sections of society, even, female society not'being excluded. Old Thomas Fuller gives an abbreviated account of a singular disputation between Their Graces of Canterbury and.-. York some years back —in 1176, to be precise. “A synod was called at' Westminster,” he writes, “the Pope s Legate being present . thereat, on whosp right hand sat Richard, Archbishop of Canterbury, as in his proper place, when in springs Roger of York, and finding Canterbury, so seated, fairly flings him down in Canterbury s lap (a baby too big to be danced thereon!), yea Canterbury’s servants dandled this lap-child with a witness, who plucked him thence and buffeted him to purpose. . . • Here the Popo interposed, and, to end old divisions, made a new distinctioiT--‘Tri-mate of All England,” and Primate of England,” giving the termer to Canterbury, the latter to York. Thus when tw T o children cry for the same applie, tbs indulgent father divides it betwixt them; yet so that he gn-etn the bigger and better part to the child that is his darling;” The straggle was even more vigorous and exciting than Thomas Fuller makes out.

This ecclesiastical rivalry continued for a good hundred years, for m IZsU the Archbishop of York of the day wrote the following letter to Pope Nicolas III:— - “Lo, most reverend father, on my return to England ... I set up my cross in the midst of the English sws as a token of my primacy, as is always wont to be done, and was quieuy bearing it through the diocese of Can-' terbury, when Master Adam of Hales, official to the Archbishop of Canterbury, together with- certain accomplices and adherents of his own and the Devil’s, rushed violently upon nm and my train like a brazen-faced mad-, man, and wickedly dashed my cross to pieces; yet blessed be the Lord I .1 soon procured another, and caused 1 to be carried erect before me. . . . Nor was he content with these reviliims and assaults; for, when I entered” the city of London, on the morrow, he hastened to make a fierce assault upon me an dmine with an immense multitude of armed men, bearing staves, axes, swords, and divers other weapons, to the huge scandal of us all . . Moreover, most exalted I’atlier ' my Lord of Canterbury, through his official and his servants. . ... did most cruellv prohibit and interdict to ine and mine all lodgings, places ot resort, and victuals, as though we had been heretics ... and wheresoever 1 go he layeth the whole neighbourhood under ecclesiastical interdict. rnowadays we oulv have inter-sectarian troubles, except, of course, when there is a heresy hunt inside a sect.

KiiiA Louis of France settled his difficulties in the matter of .Precedence in rather a novel way.. v " f * he eternal squabbles of his Court of Ve sailles, upon which he was continually being called to decide, and entertaining also grave doubts as to the validity of soirfe of the titles borne by the peers if France, he one dav announced that he intended to maike a clean sweep of the board. All persons pos- - sensing titles of nobility His • ordered, must register them at gnen dates at, the office of the Keeper of the Great Seal of the Realni at sail’es, after proving their right thereto bv documentary evidence. lfi» monarch also commanded that the nobles should thereafter enjoy their precedence in accordance with the order of their recistration in each giade, and that the duke who got his name in first, for example, should for ever be the premier duke of the On this decree being issued, of Uzes and Luvncs, who by their violent quarrels had given the greatest trouble to the King; set out in their coaches early on the appointed day to drive to Versailles, each fearing that the other would get there first. A furious race ensued, and towards the end tho ,Duke of fearing that the Duke of Luynes yas li had his coachman drive deliberately in the De Luynes equipage, upsetting it its horses, and. occupants, into the ditch- Ever since that day the sue cessive Dukes of Uzes have had the proud honour of 'being the first Peeis of France. However. I suppose it was a case of noblesse oblige.

A correspondent, evidently a pedestrian, writes :-A recent advertisement announced that Henry I £ his tractors been placed . among the immortals.” Poetic justice surely! Usually those sent aloft by motor vehicles are not those who manufacture them.

A countryman with a local reputation as a vocalist attended a dmn and was asked to fine. Although h® had no music with him,, and was ns hoarse as a frog, he consented to try, but broke down. “Never tljee mind. lad. said an s twine to cheer him up : “never mind the breakdown, for thee s done t.hv best; but th’ fellow as asked thee t’ sing ought to be shot. • THE PARTING. “Good-bye, dear, we part forever.” All the colour left her face. But he found it on his shoulder When he reached his boarding place. Blaine C. Bigliw.