Lord Dufferin on Tuesday moved the second reading of a
Bill for repealing the Party Processions' Act, an imbecile statute authorizing Government to treat party processions in Ireland as criminal offences. As the Government deals with dangerous pro- cessions under its ordinary powers, the statute is of little value for the preservation of peace, while it irritates those whom it affects into defying the law. Moreover, it has in practice been found impossible to work it in the South, while it can be worked in the North, and it appears therefore to be an Act retained only to wow Orangemen. The Government therefore suggests its rep*, and as Lord Cairns eagerly approved, it will of course be ' repealed, and all Irishmen, of all psrties, will be left to march about, ad play tunes, and parade banners till they are tired of those amusements. They are, if slightly childish, at all events more amusing than the huge funerals through which the Irish populace now expresses its desire that the English should go away.
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