The Chief Commissioner of Police has ordered that the pro-
cessions which to-day will form part of the great demonstration of the friends of temperance against the Bill authorising County Councils to buy up and suppress small public-houses, should not march through Regent Street and Oxford Street, but by less crowded routes. They are not, in fact, to interrupt London business. The organisations which are getting up the display are consequently discontented, and on Tuesday questions were asked of the Home Secretary. Mr. Matthews replied that the police orders had his approval, that in many thoroughfares of London the traffic on Saturday was enormone, that in 1888 two processions only got to their destination by taking possession of the streets, and that to allow a disloca- tion of traffic by many processions crossing London from many points at once, was simply impossible. Mr. Pickersgill thereupon moved the adjournment of the House, and the subject was debated at some length ; but the Gladstonian leaders, knowing that they will hereafter have to govern London, did not assist him, and he was defeated by 231 to 131.
