THE VICTORIAN ASSEMBLY.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1886, 10 March 1880, Page 3

THE VICTORIAN ASSEMBLY.

The following, from the Melbourne «Telegraph,” is not a flattering description of members of the Victorian Assembly:—“Our successive Assemblies hare become worse and worse, sinking from a low level to one still lower, until at length the lowest is reached, and the Victorian Lower House stands before the world as probably the most disreputable and the most demoralised body that ever abused representative powers and privileges within the wide range of the British dominions. Instead of grave and sober debating, the nightly occupation of the body, now happily defunct, was to indulge in such scenes as recalled to memory those Helot orgies to which the ancient Greeks, by way of warning, were accustomed to take their sons. The spectacle of a member reeling and speechless through intoxication, led in between two Ministers of the Crown to give an unavailing vote, was_, we suppose, never before seen in any British House of Assembly, but we have shown the world even that disgustingly repulsive sight. The spectacle of a member rushing wildly at a fellow member to brain him with JJtho first hard weapon that came to hand is unique in British legislative annals, but a fact in Victorian history. Then the incessant brawls, the ruffian insults, the brutal taunts, the manners and language of the prize ring and the low taproom, which were almost the staple of every day’s parliamentary record, are something that makes one ashamed to be obliged to publish to the world. The vile language and viler conduct were but symptomatic of the real disease—“ of the rank corruption mining all within.”