On Friday week, at a special meeting, the London County
Council considered the Report of the Licensing Committee. The chief struggle was over the Empire Theatre, where the Committee recommended the grant of a license subject to the abolition of the promenade. This decision the licensees refused to accept, and appealed to the Council. On the merits we do not care to express an opinion ; but we have given elsewhere our reasons for believing that the Council was, under the circumstances, quite right to support the Committee. To have done otherwise would have encouraged the notion that the Council could be coerced by agitation from outside,—a most dangerous notion in the case of any public body. Before leaving the subject, we must express our deep regret that the supporters of the Empire Theatre should have used the language they did use in regard to Mrs. Ormiaton Chant, the chief opponent of the license. We have no sympathy with Mrs. Chant's clumsy method of agitation; but she is clearly quite sincere and well-meaning, and to attack her as she has been attacked is monstrous. A woman should be treated decently, even by those to whom her ideas seem silly or fanatical.
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