ABSTRACT
F E E S were paid in each House of Parliament, both by promoters and opponents of private Bills, in the earliest times of which we have Parliamentary record. This practice may have been brought from the Courts at "Westminster by the clerks in Chancery, who, in 1363, were assigned to receive petitions.1 As these petitions, and proceedings upon them, often raised questions of a judicial as well as a legislative character, it was not unreasonable to require from suitors some contribution toward the expense of maintaining any additional staff which their business made necessary in Parliament. Fees paid by litigants invoking the appellate jurisdiction of the Lords would also naturally lead to similar payments from petitioners in that House, whose prayers for relief could only be settled by private statute.
