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Brewer's Horses. For his services, Mr. Speaker Morrison will get a salary of £5,000 ($14,000) a year and, on retirement, a peerage. A keen fiddler and a braw man with the pipes, Shakes will have ample room to practice in the oak-paneled rooms of the Speaker's House in the Palace of Westminster, overlooking the Thames. Alone among British subjects, the Speaker holds levees at which court dress (breeches and orders for men, formal gowns for women) is worn. M.P.s must bow to him when entering and leaving the House. It is only when Mr. Speaker takes a ceremonial drive in his four-wheeled, 250-year-old gilt coach that his dignity is tried a little. Shakes will get an escort of but one Life Guardsman (the King's escort includes Life Guards and Horse Guards), and his coach, drawn by two dray horses provided by a firm of London brewers, has no brakes.
* To this day, the King is not allowed to set foot in the House of Commons, though the place officially belongs to him. Whenever the King's Messenger arrives at the House, frockcoated and gaitered, to deliver some official piece of news, the oak door is slammed in his face, and the cry "Black Rod! Black Rod!" goes bawling down the lobbies. The Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod thereupon knocks thrice upon the door with his wand of office, and is then admitted, bowing to the Speaker and members on both sides as he approaches the Bar. M.P.s dearly love to show off the worn spots on the door where Black Rod has rapped, as proof of Parliament's treasured independence from the Crown.