On Monday the match-box makers of London resolved to make
a demonstration, and some 10,000 very poor but peaceable girls and boys, intermingled with a few roughs, endeavoured to march to Westminster Hall with their petition. It appears from an ex- planation given on Thursday by the Home Secretary that they were warned the procession was illegal, but nevertheless persisted, and were stopped on the Embankment and at other points by strong bodies of police. They were also driven out of Westminster Hall, which they thronged in the hope of a good hoot at "Lucifer Lowe," who, however, entered the House by another entrance. The police seem to have made a little too much of the affair, and were bumptious and disagreeable, as is natural when called out by a parcel of children for a very un- pleasant duty ; but Mr. Bruce formally denies that any blows were struck, and we rather think the Tory journals have jumped a little too hastily at the chance of displaying their new pose as the "Poor Man's Friends." Well, if they want a fight over that kind of cry, "Who taxed the bread ?" will do for the other banner.
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