2-979-744 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Members of the House of Commons Taking the Oaths, 1857. 'From the mysterious recesses of the brass-clasped yellow boxes...are drawn...oblong pieces of cardboard exactly of the size and pattern of the spelling-lesson boards of infants' schools, on which are printed forms of the oaths. One of these is distributed to each member, who holds it as a lady does her fan, with the to-be-expected difference, that he holds it awkwardly, and looks as if he felt that it was rather a silly appendage to his manly person...The clerk then...reads aloud the form of words on which so many debates have been hung; and the meek representatives of the people mumble them out after him...[Each member is then] fully authorised to talk as long as the House has patience to listen to him on any subject of debate, and to vote away as many millions of the public money as may seem good to him..'. From "Illustrated London News", 1857.