certain its being practicable to make more Timekeepers, like the successful one, and equally accu-
blishment of the Glasgow lottery, while that Bill was in progress through the House?—Lord Althorp replied, that His Majesty's Government had not the least idea that a Bill authorizing the establishment of a lottery had passed the Houses of Parliament until he was apprised of the existence of the lottery itself. His attention was then drawn to the subject, and on looking at the Act, he found that no allusion was made to the lottery in its title, and that the word lottery itself occurred but once throughout the Act. It was, to say the truth, most skilfully drawn up, and the parties who concocted it had fully succeeded in rendering the House and the Government entirely ignorant of the real nature of the Bill.—Sir Robert Peel: If the lottery is not yet drawn, the Bill may be repealed [it is drawn.] Well then, all I can say is, that those who were parties to the transaction ought to be subjected to public punishment.
The measure which the President of the Royal Society was too successful in procuring, not to explain, but to subvert the original Act, was not of this description, though the imposition was as complete, for it did not require the sharp wits of those concerned in the Glasgow business, but belonged to a more common class of enactments—to those bills which pass both Houses pro forma; either because they are prepared by public functionaries, honourable men, whose averment, as to the utility of the step, it might seem both unnecessary and invidious to dispute; or the bill was to rectify some technical informalities, or certain local particulars, interesting only to A, B, C, and D, or their neighbours, whom nobody appeared to oppose.[subnote 1]
- ↑ The Author remembers reading in the debates, many years ago, that while a private bill was passing through its final stages in this way, a gentleman in the House, cautioned them against too much precipitation, and, to enforce his suggestion, related that, one day, on the third reading of a bill of this description, an honourable Member happened to observe
