Public house

“ A conspicuous building is a large market-house shingled all over (as many of the public buildings are) , and this and other cheap public edifices stand in the midst of a large square, which is surrounded by shabby shops for the most part. The town is laid out on a generous scale, and it is to be regretted that we could not have seen it when it enjoyed the glory of a governor and court and ministers of state, and all the paraphernalia of a royal parliament. ”

“ This case is presented simply in the hope that it will do something to arouse thinking men in public life, and especially in the Congress of the United States, to provide at least a suitable house or apartment for the American representative in each of the more important capitals of the world, as all other great powers and many of the lesser nations have done. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Among other public buildings are the court house, the city hall, in which are the rooms of the State Historical Society (organized, 1891; incorporated, 1897) ; the Federal Building; an armoury; the Chamber of Commerce, and several fine churches. ”

“ He executed his commission with great promptitude and dispatch, only calling at one public-house for half a minute, and even that might be said to be in his way, for he went in at one door and came out at the other; ”

“ Conversely we make our errands to a city hall or court-house as few as possible, knowing that the “service,” offered at the people’s expense is of a different order, and public officials may not be approached in that confident spirit with which we carry our needs or complaints to the heads of a private business. ”

“ One of the earliest institutions in every New England community was a pair of stocks. The first public building was a meeting-house, but often before any house of God was builded, the devil got his restraining engine. ”

“ There is nothing remarkable about the Government House; it is a plain 25edifice of one story in height, with lofty rooms; the aviary, the menagerie, the garden, and a pleasant promenade, where the society of the station assemble, are the most attractive features of the place. ”

“ Every one has a High-street one principal shop, where the [Pg 270] country gentlemen buy silks for their wives, and Champagne for themselves; then there are the Courts of Justice, the assembly-rooms, an apothecary's shop, a river, a square, a bazaar, two or three street-lamps, sentry-boxes for the watchmen, and the governor's house."
"The society, however, in the government towns must be different?"
"On the contrary. The society is still more uniform than the buildings." ”

“ If we are right in these enlightened days in thinking that fine public buildings for the housing of parliaments, municipal corporations, and the like civil institutions of the nation tend to give dignity to the national life ”

“ For the American has been taught the lesson of Home Rule and the success of leaving the management of the local pump to the parish beadle. He does not burden his House of Commons with the responsibility of cleansing the parish drains. ”

“ The only remedy against the evils flowing from the present system will be found in giving to the people, what they most ardently wish, a civil Government, consisting of a resident Governor, a Senate House, and House of Assembly. ”

“ This District, the seat of the national councils, and the common property of the whole republic, is by the constitution of the country, under your immediate care, and exclusive government—and to the combined wisdom, patriotism and prudence of your honourable body, is the common mind turned, with intense anxiety, knowing that nothing can exempt any portion of us from the shame and mortification that may attach to the character of its public laws and institutions; while nothing can prevent their participation in the splendour and renown of its wisdom, prosperity, and happiness. ”

“ From the neatness of the town, the incomparable walks and rides about it, its rendezvous of Ministers and politicks, it is a very agreeable place to live in. The Ministers here by turns hold assemblies of the men at their houses, morning and evening, and I have dined at the house of one or other of them almost every day. ”

“ The Government House is a fine specimen of architecture, and is built around an open square ornamented like a garden, but really little less than a citadel if necessity should require it to assume that form. ”

“ It is owing also to the wealth and dignity of those ancient families, who would be styled noble in any other country, and who give an aristocratical character to the popular part of our legislature, and to the influence which the peers themselves, through the representation of small boroughs, are enabled to exercise over the lower house. ”

“ It has lately been decreed, that every house in the republic shall have fixed on the outside of the door, in legible characters, the name, age, birth-place, and profession of its inhabitants. Not the poorest cottager, nor those who are too old or too young for action, nor even unmarried ladies, are exempt from thus proclaiming the abstract of their history to passers-by. ”

“ Why,—every nobleman should be content with one house, and every private gentleman be ashamed of his stables and kennels, rather than that the House of Commons should not have a perfect place of assemblage. ”

“ Adjoining the town hall, and covering fully an acre of land, is a handsome block of buildings, devoted to the various Government departments, including the Treasury, Railways, Lands and Survey, Public Works, and Post Office. ”

“ Streets and avenues have since been laid out and completed, squares and public grounds inclosed and ornamented, until the city, which bears his name, although comparatively inconsiderable in numbers and wealth, has become quite fit to be the seat of government of a great and united people. ”

“ The daily work of the House was left, for the most part, in the hands of the members of the Administration and the leading members of the Opposition, or, in cases where the interests of a particular class, or trade, or district were concerned, to the men who had special knowledge of each subject of legislation. ”

“ If the schoolhouse is an efficient centre for the proper training of boys and girls to understand their social relations and civic responsibilities, and if the meeting-house is an efficient centre for the discussion of social ethics and a religion that moves on the plane of earth as well as heaven, then the town house will give a good account of itself in intelligent voting and clean political methods. ”

“ Eighty to a hundred houses, all of more or less wretched appearance, with the exception of two or three whose opulent proprietors we will not name for fear of offending their modesty, line the two or three streets and surround the public square of that municipality, famous for leagues around by reason of the litigious nature of its population and the difficulty of reaching it. ”

“ I recommend also such legislation as will render available and efficient for the purposes of instruction, so far as is consistent with the public service, the cabinets or museums of invention, of surgery, of education, and of agriculture, and other collections the property of the National Government.
The capital of the nation should be something more than a mere political center. ”

“ The House of Commons life has a peculiar excitement scarcely understood out of it; but you may conceive its charm when you observe that a man who has once been in the thick of it feels forlorn and shelved if he lose his seat, and even repines when the accident of birth transfers him to the serener air of the Upper House. ”

“ 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.... ”

“ We are going to build this House for ourselves, and we shall expect the brethren and sisters, neighborhood after neighborhood, ward after ward, to turn out their proportion of men to come here and labor as they shall be notified by the proper authorities. ”

“ The House of Representatives is a beautiful and spacious hall, of semicircular shape, supported by handsome pillars. One part of the gallery is appropriated to the ladies, and there they sit in front rows, and come in, and go out, as at a play or concert. ”

“ In larger villages boards of health and other boards and commissions exist to administer various forms of public service. The village may also have its minor court presided over by a justice of the peace.
CITY GOVERNMENT When villages or towns reach a certain population usually fixed by state law, they may be incorporated as cities. The change that takes place is simply one of elaborating the governing machinery and giving to it larger powers to correspond with the larger needs of city life. The complex problems of city government we shall not attempt to study in this book. ”

“ If a village of half a mile square, and one hundred families, is capable of exercising all the legislative, executive, and judicial powers, in public assemblies of the whole, by unanimous votes, or by majorities, it is more than has ever yet been proved in theory or experience. ”

“ The true office of the house is not only to be useful, but to be aesthetically a background for the dwellers therein, subordinate to them, not obtrusive. In most of our modern building and furnishing the people are relegated to the background as insignificant figures. ”

“ In some cases, a rich philanthropist has come forward with a sum of money to build a suitable home for the Society, but very often no such building exists, and the meetings are held in the Town Hall, or some other public edifice of the place. ”

“ Before, however, we pass in review the conduct of the House in modern times, we must form a clear idea of what have come to be the recognised functions of the House in matters of legislation and administration ”

“ The location of such a public building, which should provide for the pressing necessities of the present and for the vast increase of the nation's books in the future, is a matter which addresses itself to the discretion of Congress. ”

“ And immediately, from all ends of the city or the State, or from every State in the Union, all who feel an interest in the subject or question fly upon the wings of steam to the appointed place of meeting and at the appointed hour. The hotels and boarding-houses of the city are rapidly filled; they come together in the great hall of assembly, they shake hands, they become acquainted with one another, they make speeches, they vote, they carry their resolutions. ”

“ Under the legislation cited, developments of private property may be to a considerable extent controlled, bill-boards may be abolished, structures may be limited in height, the design of private buildings may be modified, solely in the interest of the public’s sense of beauty. ”

“ Again, all these legislatures have to provide immense hosts of men, in the shape of custom-house, excise, and police officers, to carry out their designs, all of whom, and their families, help to increase the burden, till it becomes insupportable. ”

“ In our land every home is a little republic that plays its part in the larger republics of the town and the county, and the affairs of each home and the welfare of its inhabitants are the concern of all. ”

“ Every curate of the plain possesses an immense influence in his parish and neighbourhood, and as at a moment their support may be of great use in a political point of view, the government, which is alive to everything, caresses, smiles on, and cajoles them. ”

“ Another house, equally spacious and eligible, is required for the uses of his office! And, in general, our people seem to go upon the theory that, having conquered the country, they are entitled to the best it has, and in duty bound to use as much of it as possible. ”

“ Hot tiger, an Oxford mixture of hot-spiced ale and sherry.
House of Commons, a humorous term for the closet of decency.
Houses; “safe as HOUSES,” an expression to satisfy a doubting person; “Oh! it’s as safe as HOUSES,” i.e., perfectly safe, apparently in allusion to the paying character of house property as an investment. It is said the phrase originated when the railway bubbles began to burst, and when people began to turn their attention to the more ancient forms of speculation, which though slow were sure. ”

“ The bare name of a town, of which there remains not so much as the ruins, where scarce so much housing as a sheepcote, or more inhabitants than a shepherd is to be found, sends as many representatives to the grand assembly of law-makers, as a whole county, numerous in people, and powerful in riches. ”

“ IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS—FOOTMEN TURN HIGHWAYMEN—SIR SIMON CLARKE—A MERRY FREAK AND ITS TRAGICAL CONSEQUENCES—AMAZING POLTROONERY OF TRAVELLERS—ADVERTISEMENTS OF THE PERIOD—HIGHWAY ROBBERY IN PICCADILLY
An old-world survival, heard every night in the lobbies of the House of Commons during session, is that of the cry, "Who goes Home?" When the House rises, and the legislators, who have left their brains outside and have voted "as their leaders tell 'em to" are dispersing, the stentorian shout of "Who goes Home?" ”

“ Every town-gate and village taxing-house had its band of citizen-patriots, with their national muskets in a most explosive state of readiness, who stopped all comers and goers, cross-questioned them, inspected their papers, looked for their names in lists of their own, turned them back, or sent them on, or stopped them and laid them in hold, as their capricious judgment or fancy deemed best for the dawning Republic One and Indivisible, of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death. ”