Mr. Walpole is avenged. On Sunday it was resolved at
a public meeting in Hyde Park that a meeting should be held on Monday in Trafalgar Square to protest against the grant to Prince Arthur. As the proposal for that grant was to be made on the same evening, the meeting was obviously intended as a menace to Parliament, and was very properly prohibited by the Homo Secre- tary, who notified his prohibition on Monday morning to the leaders of the movement. They flatly refused to obey, and by evening notices were sent round to them saying that Government would not interfere "unless the peace should be broken." The meeting was accordingly held, and Mr. Bradlaugh told an excited crowd that he was there that night solely because lier Majesty's Government had decided that he had no right to come. Mr. Bruce, asked by Colonel Gilpin to explain, said he had prohibited the meeting because ho thought it was going to petition Parlia- ment; but as it was only going to discuss the annuity to Prince Arthur he had withdrawn his prohibition, for the meeting was legal! All this while, the Act says that no meeting within a mile of Westminster Hall is to consider or prepare any complaint, remonstrance, or declaration to Parliament. According to Mr. Bruce's reading of the law, 100,000 men might assemble in front of Westminster Palace Gate and discuss angrily the conduct of the House of Commons, and he would have no power to make them move on. The Americans and Canadians are right, and we shall have to move Parliament into the wilderness yet. Burton- on-Trent would be about the central point, but then the draymen might overawe it.
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