Note 76 — Chapter LXXI · THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.

"The process of parliamentary reporting, and the qualifications of those by whom the task is performed, cannot be adequately described within the narrow limits of this article; but it is hoped that the reader may be enabled to form some idea of both from the following brief outline. Every publication not copying from, or abridging any other, but giving original reports, keeps one of a series of reporters constantly in the gallery of the lords, and another in the commons. These, like sentinels, are at stated periods relieved by their colleagues, when they take advantage of the interval to transcribe their notes, in order to be ready again to resume the duty of note-taking, and afterwards that of transcription for the press. A succession of reporters for each establishment is thus maintained; and the process of writing from their notes is never interrupted until an account of the whole debates of the evening has been committed to the hands of the primer. There are only seven publications for which a reporter is constantly in attendance; and these include the London morning papers, from which all others that give debates are under the necessity of copying or abridging them. The number of reporters maintained by each varies from ten or eleven to seventeen or eighteen. They are for the most part gentlemen of liberal education—many have graduated at the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Glasgow, or Dublin; and they must all possess a competent knowledge of the multifarious subjects which come under the consideration of Parliament. The expedition and ability with which their duties are performed must be admitted by every one who attends a debate and afterwards reads a newspaper, while the correctness and rapidity with which their manuscript is put in type and printed, has long been a subject of surprise and admiration."—The Parliamentary Companion.