A MANUAL OF PARLIAMENTARY PRACTICE. RULES FOR CONDUCTING BUSINESS DELIBERATIVE ASSEMBLIES. BY P. H. MELL, D.D., LL.D. PROFESSOR OF ETHICS AND METAPHYSICS, AND LECTURER ON PARLIAMEN A NEW AND THOROUGHLY REVISED EDITION. NEW YORK: SHELDON & COMPANY, No. 8 MURRAY STREET. HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY FROM THE ESTATE OF MRS. MABEL BELAÑO LORD 1942 Re-entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1867, by SHELDON & CONNOR, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Northern District of Georgia. PREFACE. By request, the Author, a few years ago, prepared a Manual for the use of a deliberative body of which he was the presiding officer. This was received by the public with favor, and passed through several editions. It was embarrassed, however, by the fact that it bore upon its face the evidence of its local origin and application. By the advice and request of distinguished presiding officers of legislative and ecclesiastical bodies, who were kind enough to commend it, the author has removed from it the traces of such local origin, and adapted it to universal use. In its original publication, it was offered to supply a felt want. No other manual, so far as known, develops the important fact that there is an English General Parliamentary Code, and an American also, similar in the main, but differing in some important particulars. No student of the science can fail to be embarrassed who does not prosecute his inquiries in the light of this discrimination. Besides, as a science, it has the right to be presented in systematic form, with a development of the great principles on which its parts are based. A mere list of rules, without a statement of their reasons, and of their mutual connection in a system, would be of little value to one trying to qualify himself to be an |