fully suppress testimony in favor of the person accused, use quali
fying adjectives as “ alleged,” " professed ," while giving great prominence to accusation, — and in other ways give an erroneous impression . But such errors are not those of the official reporter and they must not be charged to his account.
More or less unreliability has in times past been attached to the work of the official reporter , but it has been an unreliability for which the reporter himself can not be held strictly accountable . Almost unsurmountable obstructions have blocked his way and
that in the beginning he made any headway against them is surprising. The value of his reports must be estimated by the success he has had in overcoming collective opposition , in under standing the idiosyncrasies of individual speakers, and in securing such freedom from the letter as enables him to preserve the spirit
of what he reports. If the work of the reporter has been confused with that of “ the fanciful writer of parliamentary debates,” it is
well to remember that there has been but one Dr. Johnson. And if the work of the reporter has in a measure been nullified by the
after-thoughts of speakers, it is also well to remember that there have been many Macaulays who have made of Hansard " an em barrassing monument of the vanity of our senators.” 62 “ The
press gallery is the height of reportorial ambition ” and to the press gallery in every country the historian is indebted not only
for the official reports of legislative proceedings, but also for an insight into the legislative Johns and Thomases as, in more hum ble circles, they have been described by Oliver Wendell Holmes . J. D . Symon," The Press Gallery in the House of Commons," The Press and Its Story, pp. 75 -86 .
