ACCESS TO LONDON.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] Sin,—The daily Press has been full of felicitations upon the successful arrangements of the police for securing the con.- tinnance of traffic, notwithstanding the procession last Saturday. I can only speak from personal knowledge of one case, in which two old and helpless ladies, anxious to- reach Waterloo Station in good time, were net permitted: tc)
go over Westminster Bridge, and were forced to make a long circuit, to their great inconvenience.
But perhaps you will allow me to describe my own ex- perience on the occasion of the "Eight-Hours" procession a few weeks ago. Having come up by the South-Western Railway to Waterloo, I took a cab for Pall Mall. On the middle of Westminster Bridge I came to a standstill, and was obliged to dismiss my cab, hoping to make my way on foot. This I found to be quite impossible, and I had to spend an hour on the bridge. There were numbers of vehicles there which had to wait much longer. I consulted a policeman about beating a retreat and trying Waterloo Bridge, but he assured me that would be equally impossible.
Now, I submit that it is monstrous that access to London by its bridges should be barred whenever a certain section of its population disapprove of a clause in a Bill before Parlia- ment, more especially in these days of household suffrage and a free and cheap Press. My personal inconvenience on this occasion was a mere trifle compared with the distress and trouble probably suffered in numberless instances. But I might have been on my way to meet a child or an invalid at the Great Western terminus who perhaps had never been in London before. Consider, too, the inconvenience of barred access to post-offices and telegraph-stations. Can nothing be done to stop this modern abuse of the public streets ?—I am, Sir, &c.,
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