The House of Commons is notorious for long sittings, and I am sure that no advantage is gained by the present system, which enables a few members to protract the proceedings of the House to most unconscionable hours. When I first entered Parliament in 1874 nothing surprised me so much as the long hours which members reconciled themselves to endure, and under circumstances where, as I have indicated, the work done bore no comparison at all to the length of time occupied in doing it. When I went back to Dublin after my first Session in Parliament, a very kind medical friend of mine said to me, ‘You know, you must be careful about those late hours, the night air is very injurious,’ but I calmed my friend by saying he need not be so careful about the night air – it was always morning when I went home.
Bath Herald, 19 November, 1884
In 1875, his first birthday at Westminster, [O’Connor Power] asked the first Lord of the Treasury the advisability of adoption of a rule fixing beyond which no sitting should be continued.
That Irishman, p.233.