Walter Bagehot: “Caprice is the characteristic vice of miscellaneous assemblies, and without some check their selection would be…”

These anomalies, in a hundred instances, mark the old boundaries of a constitutional struggle.

I cannot, therefore, join in the full cry against anomalies; in my judgment it may quickly overrun the scent, and so miss what we should be glad to find.

But it is natural also that persons used to analyse political institutions should look at these anomalies with a little tenderness and a little interest.

Subject to this saving remark, however, I not only admit, but maintain, that our Constitution is full of curious oddities, which are impeding and mischievous, and ought to be struck out.