Show history of porting reporting Ee although tile tiie debates in the british houses of parliament are reported at greater length and more systematically than any other proceedings which transpire la in the united kingdom the statute which requires the parliamentary debates to bo be held with closed doors and by which a printed report becomes illegal is still the tha published published shed debate is only an accession to the pub fic tic c demand but that which was reluctantly granted as a privilege ig is now demanded as a right the tho early struggle of the london press to secure for its patrons the record of what transpired in the legislature are given in mr hunts interesting work entitled the fourth estate from it we learn that from 1743 to 1766 no one appears to have been able enough to attend a regular report of the debates but that in the latter year mr air aimon almon commenced to publish brief reports of some important imports ut proceedings of the time lime they are however very imperfect as historical records in 1774 this gentleman began to publish regular reports of both houses in his parliamentary register and from that time to the present the records of the british legislature are tolerably complete after the famous ruggle struggle sl with public opinion and the imprisonment of lord mayor crosby as related in one of our editorials last week a reluctant permission was granted but though reporters and publishers were no longer persecuted no facilities were offered for taking a report whoever attempted to preserve a record of the debates had to sit in the strangers gallery and often to wait for hours on the stairs beffi e admission was granted even then when in the house no notebook note book dared to 0 o be exhibited and hence bence the only man to report at all was one with a good memory the most celebrated of these early reporters was mr william his method of reporting was very different from that tint adopted at the present day anu and and und when the difficulties he had to contend with are flis ilis presented resented the results he secured are surprising his hib custom was to sit through an entire debate making here add arid there a secret memorandum and then when the house was up he went off to write out his report which occupied him sometimes till nearly noon of the next day the paper containing the debate being published in tile the evening his reputation however spread far and wide ard and when strangers visited the house of commons their first inquiry often was which ia is the speaker their next which is mr it is said that he be would sit for very many hours without any refreshment whatever but hut when wilen hungry and faint with his long task would draw a hard boiled egg from his pocket take off the shell in his ilat hat and stooping down make a meal on the indigestible dainty in haste baste lest the sergeant at arms should witness s the infraction of the rules of the house is sald raid to have been very dignified and not very fond of the society of his ills fellow reporters and a gallery tradition declares that one day the hard eggs ggs were filched from his pockets by some rival and ones put in their place places to the great discomfiture of the victim of he file practical joke is described as the intimate of garrick goldsmith and all the actors and dramatists of repute in his day mr Wood falls first reports were ivere made for the london packet from which lie transferred his services to the morning chronicle aud avid it was with his leaving that paper some years after that mr Air perry of the morning chronicle commenced the present successful system of reporting a system supported not by man of remarkable powers but by a succession of skilful nen each taking notes for a fixed period and then writing them out for the press mr perry was the first man who was able to print the de bates of one in a paper of the next morning while was laboriously working out hi his 13 report assisted ly ily notes from some of the speakers for publication cation catlon in the even evening inz perrys verion lon ion of the debate was being circulated and rad read ail all over the city the result was that paper failed while perry made a fortune several members of perrys corps of parliamentary Te porters reporters were men remarkable for talent and wit and from that day to the present the gallery callery has held a number of distinguished men among the tho more recent literary instances the names of hazlitt and char chat charles oharles les dickens are often quoted the latter is described by his old colleagues as having been as excellent in this his first literary attempt as he has ince since proved himself to be in the higher walks wherein lie won his hii fame members ave sometimes complained of the way in which their harangues are reported but tn in truth the speakers ow owe a debt of gratitude to those who place their speeches before the public dressed in all the graces of oratory and grammar the words as thy th y are uttered and the same as they are prin printed are often a curious carious improvement one upon another all the rings the hesitations tat ions and the repetitions are ara ornit omitted ted 1 the ar argument the illustrations and the facts being alone anul preserved when the new times was started a part of their plan was to report the parliamentary debates verbatim this was commenced but it is edid that within a week the proprietors were threatened with actions for burlesque ln inc ing the speeches of honorable 31 P s the printing prin tins of harangues as they were spoken rather than as they were intended to have been spoken was unendurable and verbatim reports were abandoned ex |