Council chamber

“ The central hall is of mean proportions, and in a few minutes all is confusion, as there is no real dignity of treatment, and certain inner courtyards are actually built with painted iron pillars hopelessly out of harmony with the prevailing style of the building. The Chamber of Deputies, in the form of an ellipse, is businesslike and handsome, but no more imposing than some of the council chambers of the great provincial cities at home. ”

“ The day, which was overcast in the early morning, has turned out fair and bright, and the Council Chamber and all the approaches to it are crowded with the highest nobles, temporal and spiritual, in the land; steel clad knights, mitred abbots, proud bishops, grave judges in cap and ermine, peers and lackeys, stand on the stairs and in the ante-rooms, to catch a word or get a look at the coming grand historical farce which is to end at last in a terrible tragedy. ”

“ On the ground floor is the national prison and the stables, where the members of the council have the privilege of putting up their horses during the sessions. The kitchen is on a grand scale, with immense hearts and cauldrons. A staircase, which savors of antiquity, leads to the chamber on the first floor, where the council meets. It is a vast hall of an imposing aspect. At one end is a chair for the syndic, who sits as president of the assembly; along either wall are benches of oak for the twenty-four councillors; and between the corridors is a picture of Jesus Christ. ”

“ This fine chamber, 152 ft. in length, is the scene of the state banquets and entertainments of the corporation, and of the municipal meetings “in common hall.” The building also contains a council chamber and various court rooms, with a splendid library, open to the public, a museum and art gallery adjoining. ”

“ The building is in the form of an H, nearly; the secretary's office and the general court taking up one side below stairs, the middle being a handsome portico, leading to the clerk of the Assembly's offiee and the House of Burgesses on the other side; which last, is not unlike the House of Commons. In each wing is a good stair-ease, one leading to the council-chamber, where the governor and council sit in very great state, in imitation of the king and council, or the lord chaneellor and House of Lords.... ”

“ Its height from the ground to the top of the tower is a hundred and eighty feet, and the three ample stories above the basement furnish accommodation to the city and county offices, in addition to the Circuit and Recorder's Courts. The walls are frescoed, the floors laid in mosaics of colored marbles, and the Council Chamber and other public rooms are furnished with black walnut chairs and desks, and paneled in oak. With these exceptions, there is no woodwork about the immense building. Everything, from basement to dome, is brick and iron and stone. ”

“ Be stern in the council-chamber,
Show no weakness, and insist on your plans being ratified by the sovereign. ”

“ Now the legislature assembles in a spacious brick council-house, provided with suitable committee-rooms, senate chamber, representative hall, library, and executive offices, which cost $22,000.
“Their citizens occupy neat hewed double log-cabins, frame, brick, or stone houses, according to the means or taste of the individual, with ground adorned by ornamental trees, shrubbery, flowers, and nearly every improvement, including orchards of the choicest fruits. Some of these orchards have existed for nearly twenty years, and are now in a good, fruitful condition. ”

“ If one House represents popular feeling, the other should represent personal merit, tested and guaranteed by actual public service, and fortified by practical experience. If one is the People's Chamber, the other should be the Chamber of Statesmen—a council composed of all living public men who have passed through important political office or employment. ”

“ The commissioners, October 13, 1649, with their servants, being come to the manor-house, they took up their lodging in the king's own rooms, the bed-chamber, and withdrawing-room: the former whereof they also made their kitchen; the council-hall their brew-house; the chamber of presence, their place of sitting to dispatch business ”

“ The high commissioner is irresponsible, but his decrees, except in certain specified cases, must be countersigned by a member of his council. He convokes, prorogues and dissolves the chamber, sanctions laws, exercises the right of pardon in case of political offences, represents the island in its foreign relations and is chief of its military forces. The chamber (βουλή) , which is elected in the proportion of one deputy to every 5000 inhabitants, meets annually for a session of two months. New elections are held every two years. ”

“ The Mayor and Corporation meet, and decide to build a brand-new town hall replete with every luxury and convenience. The old must vanish.
And yet, how picturesque these ancient council chambers are. They usually stand in the centre of the market-place, and have an undercroft, the upper storey resting on pillars. Beneath this shelter the market women display their wares and fix their stalls on market days, and there you will perhaps see the fire-engine, at least the old primitive one which was in use before a grand steam fire-engine had been purchased and housed in a station of its own. ”

“ Under the mayor are various heads of departments,—street commissioners, assessors, overseers of the poor, etc.,—sometimes elected by the citizens, sometimes appointed by the mayor or the city council. This city council Is a legislative body, usually consisting of two chambers, the aldermen and the common council, elected by the citizens; but in many small cities, and a few of the largest,—such as New York, Brooklyn, Chicago, and San Francisco,—there is but one such chamber. ”

“ Able and ambitious statesmen have preferred usually to be identified with the lower house. The upper chamber possesses large powers—powers nominally co-ordinate with those of the lower one—and it has acted not infrequently with sufficient independence to defeat measures advocated by the National Council. But, without being the feeble upper chamber that is commonly associated with a parliamentary system of government, it is yet essentially lacking in the initiative and independence of a true senate. ”

“ Laws passed by this legislature and not vetoed by the governor or the king were to go in force three years after their enactment. The legislature had two houses, the lower a popular chamber, called the Assembly, elected by the towns. The upper branch was called the Council. The first Council was appointed by the king; later [Pg 11] members were to be nominated by the Assembly for the approval of the governor. ”

“ At the same time, however, that both our Secretaries of State, many of our Privy Councillors, war Councillors, forest Councillors, and finance Councillors, are to be reckoned among the second class, still not one of these exalted individuals, who from their situations are necessarily in constant personal communication with the Sovereign, ever see that Sovereign except in his Cabinet and his Council-Chamber. ”

“ As far back as February, 1872, the Ministry, in view of the attitude of the Upper House, passed a resolution declaring its approval in principle of a reform of the Chamber—a reform which was, indeed, to be based solely on the idea of a Council of State, and not on that of a real Chamber of Peers in the English sense. [8] Naturally such a radical change found many opponents in exalted circles, and even the Liberal party received the proposed reform with relative coolness, being much more interested in an energetic handling of the District Regulations question. ”

“ Ten o'clock at night of that same day found the General Council of the Insurrectionary Commune of Paris still in session in that chamber of the City Hall called the Equality Chamber. The open windows gave on the square choked with citizens. ”

“ As soon as experience had shown this, or seemed to show it, the theory that two chambers were essential to a good and free Government vanished away.
With a perfect Lower House it is certain that an Upper House would be scarcely of any value. If we had an ideal House of Commons perfectly representing the nation, always moderate, never passionate, abounding in men of leisure, never omitting the slow and steady forms necessary for good consideration, it is certain that we should not need a higher chamber. ”

“ He might spend a couple of millions on a building which would astonish the natives, and not give them as agreeable a working room for the Legislature as this old chamber. The fashion is to put up an edifice whose dimensions shall somehow represent the dignity of the State, a vast structure of hall-ways and staircases, with half-lighted and ill-ventilated rooms. It seems to me that the American genius ought to be able to devise a capitol of a different sort, certainly one better adapted to the Southern climate. ”

“ Horace Walpole wrote some bitter verses on the subject of that House whose members "sleep in monumental state, to show the spot where their great Fathers sate;"
"Thou senseless Hall, whose injudicious space, Like Death, confounds a various mismatched race, Where Kings and clowns, th' ambitious and the mean, Compose th' inactive soporific scene." [43]
Peers themselves no doubt regard the Upper Chamber as a haven where merit may receive its ultimate reward; where the achievements and the recompense of the deserving are suitably immortalized. ”

“ It is needless to speak of the Upper House, which, as has been sarcastically remarked of our House of Peers, is merely a "High Court of Registry"—it remains to be seen whether an elective chamber would possess greater vitality and independence. ”

“ Nobody wants a second chamber, except a few disreputable individuals. It is a valuable institution for any member of it who has no distinction, neither character, talents, nor estate. But a peer who possesses all or any of these great qualifications, would find himself an immeasurably more important personage in what, by way of jest, they call the Lower House.’
‘Is not the revising wisdom of a senate a salutary check on the precipitation of a popular assembly?’
‘Why should a popular assembly, elected by the flower of a nation, be precipitate? ”

“ Our present difficulty is less with the roof than with the surrounding inclosure, separating us entirely from the open air and the light of day. Windows are natural ventilators; but we have none. Let this chamber be brought to the open air and the light of day, and Nature will do the rest. From its commanding position on a beautiful eminence, where every breeze can reach it, the Capitol will have an invigorating supply from every quarter. ”

“ There are no “dockyard” members. Nothing need be said with a view to a general election. Nor can a member of the Upper Chamber be imagined making a speech, for the sake of speaking. It is not exactly an inviting atmosphere for such an undertaking. Imagine yourself standing up to address a huge and almost empty chamber, furnished with crimson benches, and tenanted by a smattering of elderly gentlemen all staring with polite fixity at their boots. ”

“ JESSE COLLINGS (His Friend)
A DISTINGUISHED VISITOR
A NURSE
The Man of Business
SCENE: Highbury. August 1913. Between double-doors, opening from living-room to conservatory, sits the shadow of the once great and powerful Minister, State Secretary for the Colonies. To the dark, sombre tones of the heavily furnished chamber the gorgeous colours of the orchids, hanging in trails and festoons under their luminous dome of glass, offer a vivid contrast. Yet even greater is that which they present to the drawn and haggard features of the catastrophically aged man whose public career is now over. ”

“ Apart from the staircase tower, [490] the upper floor of the southern block consisted of the ‘upper’ frater or refectory, a spacious apartment, which had been used for Parliaments and the legatine trial of Henry VIII’s divorce case, and was sometimes known as ‘the Parliament chamber’. [1527] The ground floor is a little more difficult. The survey of 1548 assigns to it a ‘blind’, that is, I suppose, a windowless, or at any rate dark, parlour, which came next the buttery block, and a hall, to which the parlour served as an entry. ”

“ Each of the chambers has the right of introducing new bills, as has also the government; but all money bills must originate in the Chamber of Deputies. The consent of both chambers and the assent of the king is necessary to their being passed. Ministers may attend the debates of either house but can only vote in that of which they are members. ”

“ Let us enter the chamber of the Commons. Here you see no amphitheatre for the ladies, no boxes for the Peers, nor for the corps diplomatique. A narrow gallery, only, is reserved for the reporters, and another, more spacious, is open to the public. Here are no costly marbles, no statues, no gilding. It is truly nothing but a chamber—a vast apartment, of greater length than width, without ornaments of any sort—indeed, perfectly naked. ”

“ A group of connected buildings for the various departments might be better than one solid parallelogram, and I have a fancy that legislators would be clearer-headed, and would profit more by discussion, if they sat in a cheerful chamber, not too large to be easily heard in, and open as much as possible to the sun and air and the sight of tranquil nature. ”

“ The State Capitol is an imposing structure. Under the general code provision passed in 1895, the city government is vested in a mayor, elected biennially, and a unicameral council which confirms the executive's nominations to all subordinate offices except those of police magistrate and city treasurer, which are filled by popular election. ”