Office chair

“ The prestige which nowadays attaches to the office has been slowly evolved on parallel lines with the gradual public recognition of the necessary impartiality of the Chair. In proportion as the Speaker became fair minded, the strength of his position was enhanced, until to-day the occupant of the Chair is as powerful as he is impartial. ”

“ Can't find Mellor. 'You take the Chair,' says the Squire; 'you'll fill it admirably.' No time for hesitation; I take the Chair; Clerk claps Bill into my hand. I say, 'Question is, that I do report progress, and ask leave to sit again.' Shouts of 'Aye,' and 'No.' 'I think the Ayes have it,' I say, in deep chest-notes, with persuasive fall of eyebrows. 'The Noes have it!' they shout. Very well; first duty of Chairman is to be impartial; so I say, 'The Noes have it.' Again they roar with laughter. Woodall, in charge of Bill, feels for sword of Financial Secretary to War Office. ”

“ In the inner office there were more chairs and another table, littered with papers: letters and packets all tied up with pink tape (which cost three sous the metre) , and bundles of letters from hundreds of clients, from the highest and the lowest in the land, you understand, people who wrote to me and confided in me to-day as kings and emperors had done in the past. In the antechamber there was a chair-bedstead for Theodore to sleep on when I required him to remain in town, and a chair on which he could sit. ”

“ It follows also that on his first appointment to the Chair he is necessarily the choice, or the nominee, of the political Party which at the time is supreme. The Chair of the House of Commons, when vacated by resignation or death, has always been considered the legitimate prize of the Party then in office or in power. Accordingly the Speaker has invariably been chosen from the ranks of the Ministerialists. ”

“ Some day—and the Easy Chair dedicates the remark as a conciliatory conclusion to the Bugle of Freedom—some day the Bugles of that same honored name will gaze at the present printing-office, where a sympathetic Easy Chair trusts the jobs are many and profitable, and will say, with emotion, "There the parental Bugle of Freedom blew its melodious note." It will do the Buglets no harm, as they return to their palatial mansions, to reflect upon the simple and sturdy origin of their prosperity. ”

“ But what must the appointing power have secretly thought of a man who respected his own name so little? And an eminent public officer of long service told the Easy Chair that a recommendation was once delivered to him by an office-seeker from a President of the United States ”

“ THE ENLIGHTENED OBSERVER. HE Enlightened Observer from Europe who is studying American institutions asked the Easy Chair the other day what was meant by the statement that a candidate for a high elective office had opened headquarters in the neighborhood of a nominating convention. The Enlightened Observer said that he had always supposed that such conventions were assemblies which nominated persons whose public services and personal ability and character had distinguished them among their fellow-citizens, and shown them to be especially fitted for the offices which were to be filled. ”

“ I can see that the personal appearance and manners of a candidate might be displayed favorably at a headquarters, and that, in a charming phrase of your country, he might dispense a generous hospitality in a hotel parlor, but how can he display his fitness for a high office in such narrow quarters as headquarters must be? Am I to understand that when Mr. John Jay was selected as a candidate for the Governorship of New York he had repaired previously to the place of nomination and had opened headquarters? Did General Washington pursue a similar course? ”

“ It is amusing to note how the ladies crowd the seats, and how the Congressman lolls on the sofa in the outer circle of the chamber, or turns round in his chair at his desk, crossing his legs on the desk in front of him, puffs his cigar, and, heedless of the fate of the nation, turns round and fascinates the fair ones in the gallery. It is amusing also to see a Member leave his seat during his speech and walk all over the floor, snapping his fingers and pummelling any desk handy. ”

“ A chairman who knows his business, and confines his share of the proceedings to a few well-chosen sentences, and the appearance of his name on the bills, is a jewel of price, and I have often been very glad to meet him. But I must admit that he is rare, and the difficulty that a secretary is always in when inviting a local celebrity to take the chair at a lecture is his inability to know whether the L.C. will not consider it a part of his functions to make a long rambling speech while the audience is waiting impatiently to hear the lecturer. ”

“ If the assembly is small and the members are known to each other, it is not necessary for the member to give his name after addressing the chair, as the presiding officer is termed, nor is it necessary for the chair to do more than bow in recognition of his having the floor. If a member rises before the floor has been yielded, or is standing at the time, he cannot obtain the floor provided any one else rises afterwards and addresses the chair. ”

“ Most well-to-do gentlemen keep their own private chairs. In travelling long distances you pay each carrier a stated sum for each ten li of the road. The four-man chairs are used only by the highest officials. No one of lesser degree than a cabinet minister is allowed to use them. They are much like the twoman chair, but the poles are longer, and the cords that hold the poles at either end are attached to a short stick that rests upon the shoulders of the two bearers. ”

“ If the room is large enough, a secretary after an Eighteenth Century model will be a beautiful and distinguished piece of furniture. I have such a secretary in my own sitting-room, a chest of drawers surmounted by a cabinet of shelves with glass doors, but I do not use it as a desk. I use the shelves for my old china and porcelains, and the drawers for pamphlets and the thousand and one things that are too flimsily bound for bookshelves. Of course, if one has a large correspondence and uses one's home as an office, it is better to have a large desk with a top which closes. ”

“ Gentlemen of the House of Representatives of the United States: It has been thought fit that the Chair should announce officially to the House, an event already known to the members individually, and which has filled all our hearts with sadness. A seat on this floor has been vacated, toward which all eyes have been accustomed to turn with no common interest. A voice has been hushed forever in this Hall, to which all ears have been wont to listen with profound reverence. A venerable form has faded from our sight, around which we have daily clustered with an affectionate regard. ”

“ I admired that chairman more than one in Caithness, who, after angling for the honour of taking the chair, grew so terrified towards the hour of meeting, that he went to bed and sent word he couldn't be present owing to flying pains in his leg! In country{86} districts, reluctance to take the chair arises from a man's fear of making himself ridiculous; once he cuts a poor figure in public, discredit is for ever attached to his name. ”

“ The strange one-wheeled chair of an official, with its numbers of pushers and supporters, will probably be followed by an artillery company dragging Gatling guns. His Majesty himself will be borne in a great throne-like chair of red work, supported on the shoulders of thirty-two oddly attired bearers, while high officials in the government service may be mounted on horse back, or borne in less pretentious chairs. The length of the procession varies, but it is [27] seldom less than an hour in passing a given place. ”

“ Chairman must be on alert every moment in Committee. Rule under his jurisdiction is conversation as opposed to speech-making when Speaker in Chair. Any moment out of depths of dulness may suddenly rise a whirlwind, which he is expected forthwith to ride. Especially in connection with Bill like this now before Committee, Chairman is in state of tension from time he takes Chair till he leaves. Don't forget all this when you criticise Mellor, still new to place. He's a good fellow, and a shrewd one; but has, among other difficulties, to fight against proneness to good-nature. ”

“ The Speaker's chair in the House of Commons is evidently designed after one of the fifteenth century "canopied seats," which have been noticed and illustrated in the second chapter; and the "linen scroll pattern" panels can be counted by the thousand in the Houses of Parliament and the different official residences which form part of the Palace. The character of the work is subdued and not flamboyant, is excellent in design and workmanship, and is highly creditable, when we take into consideration the very low state of Art in England fifty years ago. ”

“ The Chairman: In the absence of a special rule, or of custom of the assembly of such length of standing as to acquire the force of law, when a question is laid on the table it goes to the table only until such time, sooner or later, as the assembly decides to take it from the table. The chair rules the point not well taken. The question before the assembly is on taking the resolution on civil service examinations from the table. Are you ready for the question? (Undebatable.) As many as favor taking the resolution from the table say aye. ”

“ I saw that neither the chair, nor the chairmen were those who brought her. I asked the meaning and was told that the chairmen we had engaged had been inveigled away to drink somewhere. She hurried into it because of her dress, and being warm; no less than four gentlemen followed her to the very chair.
I ordered Wilson, my, cousin's servant, to bid the chairmen stop, when they had got out of the crowd till Lady Betty's chair and mine, and my wife's joined them. ”

“ FREMAN. Mr. Chairman, I rise on a point of order.
GODLEIGH. There ain't no chairman.
FREMAN. I don't give a darn for that. I rise on a point of order.
GODLEIGH. 'Tes a chairman that decides points of order. 'Tes certain yu can't rise on no points whatever till there's a chairman.
TRUSTAFORD. 'Tes no yuse yure risin', not the least bit in the world, till there's some one to set yu down again. Haw, haw!
[Voice from the dumb-as-Etches: "Mr. Trustaford 'e's right."]
FREMAN. What I zay is the chairman ought never to 'ave vacated the chair till I'd risen on my point of order. ”

“ In my few years’ lecturing experience, I have come across all sorts and conditions of chairmen, but I can recollect very few that “have helped me.” Now, what is the office, the duty, of a chairman on such occasions? He is supposed to introduce the lecturer to the audience. For this he needs to be able to make a neat speech. He has to tell the audience who the lecturer is, in case they should not know it, which is seldom the case. I was once introduced to an audience who knew me, by a chairman who, I don’t think, had ever heard of me in his life. ”

“ In large assemblies, the member who nominates, with one other member, frequently conducts the presiding officer to the chair, and the chairman makes a short speech, thanking the assembly for the honor conferred on him. ”

“ The sun shone gaily in with never a hint of tragedy, lighting up that bent figure in the arm-chair, and bringing into pitiless prominence details that should have been cloaked decently in shadow, from the drops of moisture on the drawn brow to the hands clenched white beneath the edge of the desk. ”

“ Grace having been chanted and justice done to the sumptuous tea, the public meeting began. Mr. John Symons occupied the chair, and he was surrounded on the platform by a large number of ministers, gentlemen, merchants, mechanics, and working men.
CHAIRMAN'S ADDRESS.
The Chairman said:—It was a common custom of persons not novices situated similarly to himself, to preface their remarks by saying that some person of higher local distinction ought to occupy the honourable position as chairman, and that was his request to the committee. ”

“ A heavy man is often put to great inconvenience because the chairs at his disposal are too flimsy to bear his weight. There are countless stories told of the Rev. Phillips Brooks, and men of his build, who dare not laugh at a dinner party lest their chairs resolve themselves into kindling wood at the first mirthful shake. In my own parlor there is one chair deep, broad, and of marvelous strength, bought with an eye to the needs of a friendly neighbor of grand dimensions. ”

“ Come, Chairman! Wilder sends you his apologies. A man can't do more.
[WILDER, followed by TENCH, comes in, and goes to ANTHONY.]
WILDER. [Glumly.] I withdraw my words, sir. I'm sorry.
[ANTHONY nods to him.]
ENID. You have n't come to a decision, Mr. Wanklin?
[WANKLIN shakes his head.]
WANKLIN. We're all here, Chairman; what do you say? Shall we get on with the business, or shall we go back to the other room?
SCANTLEBURY. Yes, yes; let's get on. We must settle something.
[He turns from a small chair, and settles himself suddenly in the largest chair with a sigh of comfort.] ”

“ The Chairman of Committees in the Lords, and the Chairman of Ways and Means, or his deputy, in the Commons, takes the Chair when the House is in Committee, but it is permissible for either House to nominate any one of their number as a temporary Chairman. ”

“ A chair is an insignia of honor, as I might prove by many eminent authorities. When human beings wish to call some one to the presidency of a meeting, they move that the Hon. Jonathan Wire-worker be called to the chair. And then they call him the chair-man. Now it is an honor to be a chair, whether it be a parlor chair, bottomed with damask satin, or a hair-seat chair, or a cane-seat chair, a high chair, or a baby's rocking chair, or a superannuated chair in a garret, or an easy chair, or a wooden-bottomed chair, or a learned library chair, like myself. ”