The London County Council is doing one good work. It
is relieving the House of Commons of popular hate, and drawing it on itself. On Tuesday, a meeting of the unemployed was held in Clerkenwell, and they resolved to send a deputation to the Council to demand work. They had been informed that the deputation would not be received, but persisted; and eight men, headed by Wade, a dock-labourer "in a Phrygian cap," marched to Spring Gardens. There the police tried to stop them, but Wade tried to fight his way through to the Council Chamber, and had to be arrested. Before the Magistrate he pleaded that the suffering could not wait ; and Mr. Vaughan, taking a lenient and probably wise view, only bound him over in 210 to keep the peace. Before the Council had attracted so much attention, Wade would have gone to the Home Office or the House of Commons. Now he "goes for" the new Home of Liberty, which protects itself, just as if it were some bloated institution of the past, with police.
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