fifth-rate cities and the members of state legislatures, and with some show of official sanction to many of them, especially con- gressmen. But it is questionable whether this application has any actual legal standing, save perhaps in the case of certain judges. Even the President of the United States, by law, is not the Honorable, but simply the President. In the First Congress the matter of his title was exhaustively debated; some members wanted to call him the Honorable and others proposed His Ex- cellency and even His Highness. But the two Houses finally decided that it was not proper to annex any style or title other than that expressed by the Constitution." Congressmen them- selves are not Honorables. True enough, the Congressional Rec- ord, in printing a set speech, calls it "Speech of Hon. John Jones" (without the the before the Hon.—a characteristic Amer- icanism), but in reporting the ordinary remarks of a member it always calls him plain Mr. Nevertheless, a country congress- man would be offended if his partisans, in announcing his ap- pearance on the stump, did not prefix Hon. to his name. So would a state senator. So would a mayor or governor. I have seen the sergeant-at-arms of the United States Senate referred to as Hon. in the records of that body.[1] More, the prefix is actually usurped by the Superintendent of State Prisons of New York.[2] In England the thing is more carefully ordered, and bogus Hons. are unknown. The prefix is applied to both sexes and belongs by law, inter alia, to all present or past maids of honor, to all justices of the High Court during their terms of office, to the Scotch Lords of Session, to the sons and daughters of vis- counts and barons, to the younger sons and all daughters of earls, and to the members of the legislative and executive coun- cils of the colonies. But not to members of Parliament, though each is, in debate, an hon. gentleman. Even a member of the cabinet is not an Hon., though he is a Right Hon. by virtue of membership in the Privy Council, of which the Cabinet is legally merely a committee. This last honorific belongs, not only to 22 28
