DEPUTATIONS ON PRIVATE BILLS.
EVERY revolving season brings with it to London flocks of depu- tations on private bills—the swallows of the Parliamentary summer. A happy race they are—envied alike by the aspirants after a sight of London whom they leave behind, and by the Cockneys, who, involved in the trammels of daily engagements, repine at the easy make-believe toils of these transient visiters. A trip to London on a private bill is one of the most delicious examples of a holyday masquerading in business attire. There is just enough of real business in it to give a zest to pleasure— the " petit point de l'ail" with which a French cook flavours his ragout. The member of a deputation feels his personal conse- quence augmented ; and there is a pleasing excitement in calling cabs and scampering from Committee-rooms to private interviews with Members of Parliament, that makes his forenoons pass quickly. This, however, viewed in its proper light, is his amuse- ment; his real business in London is to see sights and take a hasty sip of metropolitan dissipation. He has to go the round of Theatres—especially the Minors ; to visit Tattersall's and the Park of a Sunday (wondering audibly, if a Scotsman, what his friends in the North would say to see him so employ the Sab- bath) ; to look in o' nights at the Bolt-in-Tun, the Saloon, the Angel at Islington, the Cider Cellar, the Coal-hole, and Evans's- half afraid that he compromises his character by being seen in such places ; and to get himself presented to as many noto- rieties as possible. He has to pass through the Thames Tun- nel and mount the dome of St. Paul's, dine on pitched eels at Richmond and on white bait at Blackwell or Greenwich, and see the British Museum, the National Gallery, and the Zoological Gardens. He lnings to these diversions the keen appetite of no- velty, and the pleasing consciousness that for enjoying them he is paid three guineas a day by his constituents at home. A deputa- tion to London on a private bill is, like virtue, its own reward : whisver from a sense of public duty magnanimously undertakes
the important trust, lives in fairy-land while discharging it, and lays in a stock of conversation for his club or his own chimney- corner enough to last for the term of his natural life. With con-
siderable monotony of character- deputies present some cha- racteristic differences. The Englishman is more set upon good cheer ; the Scotsman upon sights—especially such as are to be seen for nothing; the Irishman either affects a snug corner in some place of nightly resort with a stiff tumbler of hot punch, or the pit of the. Opera, where, on the strength of an order, (ob- tained through some " reporter," his countryman,) he displays his white kid gloves and portentous shirt-frill and breast-pin. . Per- haps the most marked distinction is that which may be noted between the neophyte and the experienced deputy : it is de- lightful to contemplate the benevolent conscious superiority , with which the old stager does the honours of what he thinks "life in London" to his new friend. Even among the ha- bitues there are delicately-shaded varieties,—the stolid calcu- lator who daily saves two guineas out of his three ; the wizzened, sharp, and sallow-featured fanatical believer in the importance of the project he advocates, (a terrible bore to Members ofParlia- ment) ; and the pompous provincial leader, bent upon letting his light shine before Ministers. Thus much may be said in favour of deputations : if they seldom promote good measures, they sel- dom mar them—the agents take care of that ; if they enjoyn holyday at the expense of their neighbours, they contribute to pay for the jaunts of neighbours in after years ; and their expen- diture is no unimportant item in the annual revenue of London. They are to the licensed victuallers and other caterers for public, tastes in the Metropolis what the tribute-bearers of dependent monarchies are to the Chinese Emperor. Without them, many a snug suburban villa might be left untenanted.
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