LORD MAYOR'S DAY, 1888. - REGULATIONS by Sir CHARLES WARREN, the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis. - In pursuance of powers vested in me, I, Charles Warren, the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, make the following regulations for the route to be observed by all carts, carriages, horses, and persons, and for preventing obstructions of the streets and thoroughfares within the Metropolitan Police District on Nov. 9 inst., being the day appointed for the Lord Mayor's Public Procession:
First. For the route to be observed by all carts, carriages, horses, and persons.
1. The carriage traffic in the Strand, between Charing-cross and the Royal Courts of Justice, and in Northumberland-avenue, between Charing-cross and the Victoria Embankment, and on the Victoria Embankment, will be stopped at ten a.m.
2. The carriage traffic proceeding towards the City will be diverted up Chancery-lane at ten a.m., and no traffic will be allowed to pass south of Carey-street after ten a.m., until the procession has left the Royal Courts of Justice.
3. All traffic, both foot and wheeled, passing westward, except company going to the Royal Courts of Justice, or to houses on the line of route, will be stopped at the bottom of Chancery-lane at ten a.m.
4. The whole of the space, including the footway in front of the Royal Courts of Justice, extending from Chancery-lane to Arundel-street, will be kept quite clear to allow room for the free movement of the procession.
5. Carriages, on arrival at the Royal Courts of Justice, will set down at the footway in front of the courts, and will draw off, accompanied by the procession, by way of the north side of St. Clement Dane's Church and the Strand as far as Wellington-street, where they will return to the Royal Courts of Justice by the south side of St. Clement Dane's Church, and will take up in the same order in which they set down, and proceed by the north side of St. Clement Dane's Church and the Strand.
6. That portion of the route between St. Mary's Church and Catherine-street, Strand, will be in a line drawn from the north-west corner of St. Mary's Church (clear of the drinking fountain).
7. Traffic north and south will be allowed to pass the Strand at Wellington-street up to the latest time possible. The traffic from the south will be stopped on the south side of Waterloo Bridge, and from the north at York-street.
8. Blackfriars Bridge will be closed to wheeled traffic at ten a.m., and all vehicles on the south side of the bridge will be diverted at that time.
9. Traffic will be allowed to pass east and west between St. Martin's-lane, Regent-street, and Whitehall and Charing-cross Railway Station so long as it can safely be done.
10. The following streets will be closed to wheeled traffic at ten a.m.: Wych-street, Holywell-street, Newcastle-street, Catherine-street, Burleigh-street, Exeter-street, Southampton-street, Bedford-street, Agar-street, King William-street, Adelaide-street, Duncannon-street, Villiers-street, Buckingham-street, Brewer-lane, Durham-street, Adam-street, Beaufort-buildings, Salisbury-street, Cecil-street, Carting-lane, Savoy-street, Strand-lane, Surrey-street, Norfolk-street, Arundel-street, Milford-lane, Essex-street, Charing-cross, Scotland-yard, Northumberland-street, Craven-street, Whitehall-place, Hatton-garden, Farringdon-road, St. John's-street, Goswell-road, Cowcross-street, and Aldersgate-street, at junction of Catherine-street. Traffic on the line of procession will be re-opened when the procession has passed.
11. Facilities will be afforded by police at every part of the line of route to persons going to the Royal Courts of Justice, or to houses on the route.
12. The following are the streets and thoroughfares within the Metropolitan Police District through which the Lord Mayor's procession will pass: The Strand, Charing-cross, Northumberland-avenue, and Victoria Embankment.
The periods mentioned in this regulation may be extended in respect of all or any of the above-mentioned streets and thoroughfares as may be found necessary.
Secondly. For preventing obstruction of the streets and thoroughfares on the day above-mentioned, no procession other than that of the Lord Mayor, nor any organised body of persons, shall on that day be in or pass along any of the above-mentioned streets or thoroughfares, nor in or along any street or thoroughfare through which the Lord Mayor's procession passes, within the Metropolitan Police District.
Thirdly. For preventing obstruction of the streets and thoroughfares on the day above-mentioned, no procession, nor any organised body of persons, shall on that day be in or pass along any street or thoroughfare within the Metropolitan Police District leading to, or from, or in the vicinity of the route of the Lord Mayor's procession, before or after the assembling of that public procession, or during its progress, whether within or without the City of London, or after its termination.
Further - I, the said Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, for the purpose of preventing obstruction of the streets and thoroughfares of the Metropolitan Police District on the above-mentioned day and occasion, when the streets and thoroughfares are likely to be thronged and obstructed, give directions to all constables of the Metropolitan Police to carry out and enforce the above regulations, including the prevention of any obstruction in the immediate neighbourhood of the High Courts of Justice.
"EDUCATION OR STARVATION." - Yesterday the sum of £1 2s 6d, received at the office of The Daily Telegraph on behalf of Isaac Twist, was handed over to him. At the Worship-street Police-court - where the defendant was fined on Friday 6d and 2s costs for not sending his daughter regularly to school - Mr. Bushby stated that certain sums had been forwarded, with the request that they should be paid to Twist; but his worship observed that the amounts would be returned to the contributors on their application within a week, and, failing such demand, would be paid into the poor-box. Meanwhile, the generosity of the readers of The Daily Telegraph has satisfactorily provided for the pressing wants of the family.
WORSHIP-STREET. - WITH THE BEST INTENTIONS. Herbert Barker, 26, respectably dressed, and living in Balmer-road, Bow, was charged with having assaulted James Booth. - The prosecutor, who resides in Malmesbury-road, Old Ford, appeared in the witness-box with his head heavily bandaged. He said that on Saturday afternoon he saw the prisoner and another man in St. Stephen's-road, Bow, interfering with a young girl, who, the witness thought, was trying to get away from them, and the prisoner held her. The prosecutor interfered to protect the girl, but words ensued, and the accused closed with him, throwing him to the ground and falling on him. In the fall Booth's head came in contact with the ground, and received a severe injury, for which he had to be attended at the hospital. He gave the prisoner into custody. - Barker called his brother, who said that he was "the other man" mentioned. The young girl referred to was their cousin, whom they had accidentally met and were talking with when the prosecutor interfered and told them to talk to some one older. Booth, after warm words, struck the prisoner, who thereupon shook him and pushed him, the complainant falling backwards. - Mr. Bushby had the cousin spoken of called into the witness-box, and she, a young girl named Ada Emwood, about sixteen years of age, gave corroborative evidence. It was true the prisoner caught hold of her shoulder, and then the prosecutor interfered. - Mr. Bushby said that it seemed an unfortunate affair. Booth, actuated by the best intentions, had interfered to protect a young girl, who, however, did not need his help. - He discharged the prisoner.
The first instance of provision being made for the supply of domestic electric lighting under the amended Act of last session has occurred in East Chelsea. In the original Act of 1882 the powers of compulsory sale became operative at the end of twenty-one years, and such a condition had the effect of preventing the investment of capital to any large extent. Parliament has now remedied this obstacle to the development of a great industry and a most desirable public improvement by extending the term of the "selling clause" to forty-two years. Practically anticipating the action of the Legislature, the Chelsea Electricity Supply Company obtained a provisional order under an Act dated September, 1886, empowering them to erect works for the supply and distribution of electricity in the parish of Chelsea. This, it is understood, is the only order of the kind in existence, having been drawn up by the Board of Trade as an example of the terms under which all similar documents would be granted. It has thus come to pass that, the company having obtained the rather considerable capital required to carry out their design within the compulsory area of supply, the directors at once entered into the necessary contracts for their generating station in Draycott-place, close to Sloane-square, for several storage stations in the district, and a complete network of underground conductors. The net result will be that East Chelsea, through the foresight of the company and of the Vestry in supporting it, will be in a position to receive a house-to-house supply of electric light twelve months in advance of any other similar undertaking in the metropolis, and that the district has already actually at work within its boundaries the only installation under the control of a provisional order administered by the Board of Trade.
One important feature of the mode of working in Chelsea deserves especial notice, as it may be expected to form a useful precedent for general imitation. Instead of overrunning their area with unsightly overhead cables, the whole system of distribution will be carried on by wires underground. The company will work through small local stations, from which electricity will be distributed to the houses immediately around them. At these points the process of storing electricity from a central station will be always going on. By this arrangement the advantage of perfect steadiness of light is secured, and a reserve maintained against possible risks. Moreover, no wires conveying high-tension currents, dangerous to life, will enter the premises of the consumer. The accumulators themselves will also be in the charge and under the control of the company, and not in the houses of their customers, who will in consequence have no responsibility for their custody. As the Act of last Session is designed equally to protect the public from the effects of monopoly on the one hand, while on the other affording a fair guarantee to capital, the experiment in East Chelsea in the execution of its provisions will be watched with general interest.
SIR - At a special meeting of the Walthamstow Local Board, held this evening, the notice in your paper with reference to an inquest at the London Hospital was under consideration, and I was directed to write you with the following information: There is no epidemic of diphtheria in Walthamstow.
The houses in King-street (the street in which the death occurred) are drained into the main sewer and not into cesspools. The healthiness of the district is fully proved by the fact that the death-rate is as low as 17 per thousand. - Yours obediently,
Mr. E. Willmore, F.C.S., writes: "Concerning your report of the diphtheria epidemic in East London, I should like to say that diphtheria does not now attain the dimensions of an epidemic in Walthamstow, though it may do so in Hackney. The unsanitary state of things in Walthamstow, such as it is, is traceable to a few cesspools. But I should like to point out that the River Lea, which is adjacent to Hackney, has now begun to receive the Tottenham sewage - which in the summer months only is run into the Metropolitan system - as well as the sewage of West Ham. The condition of this river of East London is notoriously bad, on account of the imperfect treatment of the sewage discharged into it. Its chronic pollution may at any time convert sporadic disease into permanent and virulent epidemic in the midst of a large and increasing population. Yet the public, though vitally concerned in the question of sewage disposal, do not, and cannot, take a scientific interest in it, but leave it to specialists."
THE POLICE AND LICENSED VICTUALLERS. - On the 3rd ult. the Parliamentary Committee of the Licensed Victuallers' Protection Society wrote to Sir Charles Warren, protesting against his order to the metropolitan police to watch licensed houses, and wherever a drunken man is arrested to obtain evidence as to the nearest licensed house, with a view to legal proceedings. The committee maintained that the order would act most unjustly against licensed victuallers, and asked why it was not applied to clubs also. The committee further intimated that unless the order was immediately withdrawn the attention of Parliament would be drawn to it. Sir Charles Warren replied that there was nothing new in the order, that it simply called the attention of constables to their duties under certain sections of the Licensing Act, and that the order was justified by the observations of magistrates. He added that the remark as to calling the attention of Parliament to the subject was a threat which the society could not have authorised. The committee forwarded a rejoinder to Sir Charles, who on the 2nd inst. replied to an intimation that the society would publish the correspondence by expressing his gratification at their intention to do so. The correspondence is now, it is stated, under the consideration of the Home Secretary.
ON the praiseworthy, because thoroughly equitable, principle of hearing both sides of a question, the student who would arrive at a satisfactory solution of the long-standing and intricate problem of Sunday trading in London might derive much interesting information from the account which we published yesterday of traffic among the poor, as it is conducted on the Sabbath in the crowded district of Bethnal-green. Brick-lane, it appears, was blocked until eleven a.m. with costermongers' barrows and stalls laden high with fruit, vegetables, butcher's meat, and even cheap clothing, the purchasers of which were mainly females; and it was suggested, probably from a quarter adverse to Sunday trading, that many of these women had been drinking in public-houses until late on Saturday night, and were therefore fain to do their marketing on Sunday morning. Others had postponed their shopping for the more legitimate reason that cheap bargains are plentiful on the Sabbath forenoon; and the prices in Brick-lane seemed certainly to have ruled surprisingly low, beef being quoted at fourpence a pound and cauliflowers two a penny. At eleven the sanitary inspector made his appearance, with a knot of policemen following at a respectful distance; but the constables were not called upon to assume a hostile attitude towards the street-sellers, and ere long Brick-lane was comparatively unimpeded by traffic, although a certain number of the shopkeepers, especially the butchers and clothiers, kept their shutters down, and continued to sell their wares until one o'clock. Once more it is suggested that some of these tradesmen avowed that their sympathies were adverse to Sunday trading, and that they would very willingly shut up their shops if the movement for so doing could be effected by common consent. This is an argument frequently heard in the matter of early closing on weekdays. JONES hastens to express his readiness - nay, his eagerness - to close his establishment at an early hour if BROWN and ROBINSON will only do the same. It does not seem to occur to JONES that if he is really in favour of early closing he would be exercising one of the highest of the moral virtues, that of self-denial, if he shut up his premises early, quite irrespective of what BROWN and ROBINSON might do. The prosaic fact is, however, that if JONES closes two or three hours in advance of his fellow-tradesmen he does so at a pecuniary loss, and he has a natural objection to the non-closing BROWN and ROBINSON making money while he is losing it. Precisely the same feelings seem to govern one of the aspects of the Sunday trading dispute. The tradesmen who keep their shops open on Sunday contend that they do so only because their neighbours cannot be persuaded to join with them in a unanimous system of closure; but here again the plain truth is that only those shops are open on the Sabbath which deal in goods absolutely demanded by the public. The tradesmen for whose merchandise there is no sale whatever on Sunday shuts up his shop, and suffers no pecuniary loss thereby, while on the other hand he can pat his moral self-consciousness on the back by becoming a strenuous opponent of Sunday trading.
Those who look upon this great social problem from a strictly Sabbatarian or rather sectarian point of view will probably be shocked by the account published of the Sunday morning doings in Sclater-street, hard by Brick-lane. The traffic in Sclater-street begins about eleven, and is at its climax at noon, and the place is the resort of multitudes of working men and lads from all parts of the Metropolis who go thither to sell or barter not only singing birds, but pigeons, white mice, tame rats, goats, dogs, and fowls. These vendors and purchasers naturally require some slight refreshment in the intervals of business, and in Sclater-street there are itinerant sellers of hot peas, whelks, and such like humble dainties, just as in Petticoat-lane, or rather Middlesex-street, the chief comestibles on Sunday mornings used to be fried fish and soused gherkins. Then there are quack medicine sellers of the London DULCAMARA type, who, from sprucely-appointed gigs, dispense sarsparilla, cough lozenges, and dandelion pills; and in the motley throng street mountebanks, open-air preachers, gamblers for petty sums, add to what is again suggestively called an "obstruction" of the traffic. It would be easy, on the other hand, to point out that there can be little locomotive obstruction in Sclater-street at noon on Sunday, for the reason that the place is not an arterial thoroughfare traversed by rapidly driven omnibuses, cabs, and vans. Moreover, the good folk who hate Sunday trading are presumably all at church; therefore, they cannot suffer anything from obstruction. Finally, it may be urged that the mountebanks, the quacks, the bird-fanciers, the whelk and hot pea sellers do themselves constitute the traffic, and are themselves the integral components of a market; and no one expects a market to be anything but a bustling, crowded place, through which the visitor must pick his way and expect to be sharply elbowed at every turn. In the eyes of the local vestry, however, the chief offenders are the tradesmen who hang up outside their shops cages containing canaries, chaffinches, starlings, blackbirds, linnets, and other varieties of small birds, before which cages groups of men and boys congregate, gossiping on the respective merits of the feathered bipeds. Summonses have been taken out against the bird-dealers, whose excuse is that eleven o'clock is too early an hour for them to close their doors, but that they are willing to take in their cages and conclude their sales by one. Of course the parish is divided in opinion as to whether the proposed compromise shall be accepted. Some of the ratepayers would suppress Sunday trading altogether; others hold that the poor suffer no hardship through the enforcement of the recent regulations made by the Vestry; while a more limited section - the party of sound common sense - would leave the whole Sunday trading question to be settled by the requirements of the community. The money-changers' tables and the cages full of doves for sale were manifestly out of place in the Temple; but who suffers any material or moral harm from the holding of bird fair on a Sunday morning in Sclater-street, Bethnal-green? To whom is it an outrage, to whom a scandal? Because there are people selling or bartering linnets and chaffinches in a bye-street, is it likely that something will go wrong with the hymns and sermons in the parish?
We often hear in Sabbatarian speeches more or less shuddering allusions to the "Continental Sunday," which has become a standing expression of controversial cant, seeing that those who speak in such awe-stricken tones of the dreadful iniquity of Continental Sabbath-breaking conveniently choose to forget that Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfort, Amsterdam, The Hague, Stockholm, and Copenhagen are all Protestant cities, the inhabitants of which are surely as good Lutherans or Calvinists as any Englishmen can be, but in which the theatres and musical-halls, the museums and the markets, are all open on Sunday. For the sake of illustration, however, it might be worth while to quote the opinion of a wonderfully shrewd observer of human life and events on the Continental Sunday, as contradistinguished from our own. NAPOLEON I, in one of his familiar conversations with BARRY O'MEARA at St. Helena, expressed his disapprobation of the English custom of shutting up shops on Sundays. He remarked, "For those who are at their ease it may be very right and proper to discontinue work on the seventh day; but to oblige a poor man, who has a large family without a meal to give them, to leave off working to procure them victuals, is the height of barbarity. If such a law be enforced provision ought to be made by your Government to feed those who, on that day, have not wherewithal to purchase food, and who could obtain it if permitted to labour. Besides, it does not serve the cause of morality. Idleness is the mother of mischief, and I will wager that there is more drunkenness to be seen, that there is more vice, and that more crimes are committed in London on a Sunday than on any other day of the week." These observations were made more than seventy years ago, and the Exile of Longwood only knew England from hearsay and from reading our newspapers. He spoke, too, at a period when the vice of drunkenness was much more prevalent in London than - thanks to education and a cheap press - it is at present; yet, exaggerated as were his views on the prevalence of Sunday drinking, Sunday vice, and Sunday crime, and although he who never took any rest himself failed to recognise the absolute necessity for a weekly cessation of labour among those who were destitute of his iron will and his capacity for work, it is undeniable that he was justified is saying that enforced idleness and enforced dulness and cheerlessness on one specified day of the week are not incentives to morality, but are rather conducive to the demoralisation of the people. We shall never solve the Sunday question, whether it concerns amusements, refreshments, or trading, until we cast to the winds the cloak of hypocrisy in which we have so smugly draped ourselves these many generations since, and frankly recognise the fact that in this Metropolis of five millions of souls there are prodigious masses of the people who are resolutely determined not to be coaxed, not to be preached, not to be persecuted into regarding the Sabbath as a day to be passed in austere devotional exercises - as a day when they are to eat cold dinners, to lock up their children's toys, read nothing but serious books, and generally assume a grim and gruesome aspect. On the contrary, they demand a Sunday when they shall be able to abstain from hard labour if they choose, but when they shall be entitled to purchase what articles they may require, and to indulge in such recreations as shall not be directly hostile to the accepted customs of their country.
The ship Victory, Nelson's flagship at Trafalgar, left the ship basin in Portsmouth Dockyard yesterday and took up her moorings in the harbour between the flagship Duke of Wellington and the St. Vincent training ship. The old craft has been thoroughly renovated, at a cost of more than £10,000, and she will probably last for another century. Salutes will in future be fired from the Victory, and courts-martial will sit in the cabin adjoining the one formerly occupied by Lord Nelson.
