Word: quorums
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...QUORUM (309 pp.)Phyllis BentleyMacmillan...
...Quorum, her new story of postwar Yorkshire, is patterned on the weather-beaten but still serviceable formula of Grand Hotel. Author Bentley herds together eight more or less prominent citizens at a municipal committee meeting, and then, with dogged literalness, rehearses their past lives. Most of the characters conveniently pair off to personify the clash between the traditional virtues and the modern corner-cutting that is the main theme of the book...
...time the meeting drags to its finish, Author Bentley has somehow tied all her plot strings together and worked out a pro-virtue ending. Old England, the book hints, will continue to bounce along. Unfortunately, Quorum itself has little bounce. Except for the old-school labor leader, Author Bentley's characters are inert symbols of her social scheme, with neither individuality nor idiosyncrasy. Transparently plotted and written in muttony English, Quorum is the sort of novel that may give more kick to a rummaging social historian of the future than to today's American...
...lame-duck 81st Congress lingered on, dying slowly but not gracefully. Members were in a vagrant holiday mood; by midweek so many had left Washington that the leaders were barely able to call up a quorum. As matters stood before the Christmas recess, the 81st would not be able to adjourn until the day before the 82nd Congress convened...
...business stopped. Bells jangled and clerks scoured the Hill. It was almost three hours before a bare quorum could be collected out of homes, department stores, restaurants and offices (many came loaded down with Christmas packages). By that time, House leaders thought better of making an issue of it, decided to put the whole matter over until after Christmas...