Asleep in Parliament.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XL, Issue 7545, 19 May 1903, Page 7

Asleep in Parliament.

~ o The passing of the French Budget for 1908 led to a record sitting, both in the Chamber of Deputies, and in the Senate. In tho case- of the former the sitting commenced on Monday morning at nine o'clock, and lasted, with adjournments, until tho afternoon at 12.30—i.e., twenty-seven hours and a-half, while the Senate, when it, rose at 2 p.m., terminated a sitting of 25 hours. Frequently during the sitting, the new Deputies, worn out, fell I Fast asleep, and had to be awakenjcd up by strident appeals from tho President's bell. At four o'clock this morning M. Mori man entered the House, and. going up to a brother legislator, stretched full length on the bench, tickled his face with a sheet of paper. Tho latter put up his hand to brush away an imaginary fly and went on sleeping. At live minutes to six, while tho Chamber was awating for the . amending Budget to return from the Senate, and the whole House snored in unison, the President startled it from its slumbers with a resounding clang from his bell. Somnolent politicans awoke and rubbed their eyes, electric bells brought other deputies from easy chairs in committee rooms and benches in the corridor, and in a few minutes more than two hundred and fifty members were in their plac?s, but they were in a savage temper at being- roused, and when someone shouted " A bas lo Senat!" the sentiment met with instant approval, and from every | side of the House rose a chorus of "A basle Senat!" o"Sirp-' press the Senate !") ] At the buffet the supply of chocolate, soup, sausages, and ham had ' to be renewed several times during tho night, and at 4- a.m. the slum, boring guardians of the Chamber's library were astonished to sec a Deputy from the Yonne Department, walk in and ask for a book of reference. The occurrence was so abnormal that it was entered on the books. A deputy from tho Girondc, said to bo a model husband, went to the President of the Chamber at the close of tho sitting and with some hesitation asked for a certificate of his presence at the Palais Bourbon all night, so that his spouse should not doubt his devotion to his country, and another legislator was nwakened at 7.:!0 this morning by a cabman who had been 'waiting for him outside the Chamber siuc'o eleven o'clock last night. "When night in the galleries keeping an eye on their husbands, escorted the the House was finally cleared several wifes who had spent thi? latter home.