A great Permissive-Bill demonstration was held in Hyde Park on
Whit Monday, in spite of a drizzling rain, some 40,000 people having assembled to do honour to Sir Wilfrid Lawson and sup- port his demand. Cardinal Manning also addressed the vast assembly, which he estimated at 100,000, but more practised eyes assigned the lesser number we have given. His Eminence, and also Sir Wilfrid Lawson, urged that, as proprietors can refuse to have public-houses on their estates, ratepayers ought to have the power to refuse to have them in their parishes. Surely that argument goes a little too far. Proprietors may refuse, and often do refuse, to have new houses, or shops, or sheds of any kind built on their estates. Are ratepayers to be allowed the same privilege ? If so, make the ratepayers the proprietors of the parish at once.
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