naturally an interest to many persons in Hastings, including Mr. North, who must have known him personally as a representative, whom he in a few years was destined to succeed. The Premier confided to his whipper-in (Mr. Hayter, whose official designation was Parliamentary Secretary) the delicate task of summoning the Liberal members to the election of Speaker. Mr. Hayter invited Lord Palmerston's supporters to attend in their places on the 30th of April, and told them that Mr. John Evylyn Denison was to be the Government candidate, and expressed a hope that the whole Liberal party would attend and concur in his election. This move of the Premier and his trusty parliamentary Secretary, the Right Hon. Will'm Goodenough Hayter, was successful; and, presumably there were not many, who believed that anybody but Mr. Evylyn Denison had much chance of the £6,000 a year, the official residence, the pension and the peerage. Some of the newspapers confounded Mr. Evelyn Denison with another, and yet another Mr. Denison. The Press, for instance, laughed at a man being made Speaker who had invented the bell of the house. It so happened that there were two Mr. Denisons in the house, but neither of them was the inventor of the bell. Mr. Evelyn Denison, the member for North Notts, had been in Parliament ever since July, 1823, and had represented Newcastle-under-lyne, Hastings, Notts, Liverpool and Nation. He married when representing Hastings, Lady Charlotte the fourth third daughter of the fourth Duke of Portland; and apropos of this marriage, it was said that the Speaker elect was the Government favourite because the Duke of Portland got Lord Palmerston's candidate in for Ayrshire, the proposition for Speakership being the quid pro quo. This Mr. Denison, however, to do with the great bell, as the Press, the Examiner, and perhaps other papers stated. Then there was Mr. Beckett Denison, the Liberal Conservative member for the West Riding, whose name was really Edmund Beckett, he having obtained leave to use the name of Denison. Then there was a Mr. W. H. F. Denison, the Palmerstonian member for Beverly.
Speakers of Earlier Times
It may not be unintersting to mention that it used to be the custom for the Speaker-elect while setting forth the arduous nature of the office and its qualifications formally to pray to be excused; and there is one case on record in which the Sovereign took the gentleman at his word, and sent the Commons back to elect another Speaker. Sir John Popham was the Speaker in question, and Henry VI the king. In 1678, there -
