THE UNIVERSITY TESTS' BILL.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR-"] SIR,—Mr. Bonney, in his very clear and instructive narrative of the circumstance connected with the Cambridge petition on the University Tests' Bill, has refrained from calling attention to the very limited scope of the petition itself, which stands in most marked contrast to all previous petitions on the same subject. It sets forth "that the Bill, while renewing divers restrictions, tests, and disabilities, fails to provide proper and adequate securities for the maintenance of religious instruction, worship, and discipline," and concludes by praying "that the said Bill in its present form may not pass into a law."
No objection is urged to the principle of the Bill, no petition presented that a Bill, similar in all its main features, may not pass.
It is to be regretted that the promoters of the petition did not avail themselves of the opportunity, which a discussion in the schools would have given, of explaining the reasons of this remark- able change of tone.
As, notwithstanding this, the proceedings of the "Flower-show day" are not unlikely to be represented as a petition against the Bill, I wish to point out how the case really stands.—I am, Sir,
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