It appears from a decision given by the Court of
Queen's Bench on Thursday that the Parks' Act passed last Session gives the Commissioner of Works power to issue any regulations he pleases upon any subject within the Parka, and they have the force of law. He can, for example, declare riding within the Parks a penal offence, or order all pedestrians to take off their hats. The intention was that the orders .should be laid upon the table before they were put in force, but Mr. Ayrton issued them after the rising of Parliament, and they cannot be cancelled till the Session begins. The Fenian sympathisers, therefore, are liable to fines of £5 for all manner of offences, for speaking without notice, for speaking at a distance of more than forty yards from the notice-board, or, indeed, for speaking at all. It seems to have been intended to limit meetings in the Parks, but Mr. Ayrton's rules are absurdly minute,—for example, it is an offence to take a velocipede into the parks,—and he ought to have allowed Parliament an opinion on his bye-laws. By not doing so he tempted the mob to defy the law. Mr. Rylands, in consequence, intends to move a vote of censure on him, and as Tories, Radicals, and Irishmen will unite, the affair may be fatal to his official position, and be the first check sustained by the Ministry next Session.
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