THE ERAL OF SHAFTESBURYpresented a Petition from the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Commons of the City of London in Common Council assembled, praying that all Railway Companies whose railways now enter or shall in future enter the City of London should be required to run cheap trains daily, Sundays excepted. The noble Earl said that the object of the provision which was sought for by this petition was to diminish the injury which would be caused to the working classes by the destruction of houses suitable for their residence, in consequence of the extension of railways into the heart of the Metropolis. He was not sure that the running of cheap trains would altogether solve the difficulty; but it would, at all events, considerably mitigate the great evil which would otherwise result from these railway extensions.
§ EARL GRANVILLEwas understood to ask whether the noble Earl proposed to draw up a clause which should by a standing order be inserted in all these Bills; or whether he desired that the Committee upon each Bill should prepare clauses, by which the object sought by the petitioners might be attained?
THE ERAL OF SHAFTESBURYthought that there might be an Instruction to each Committee to insert clauses.
§ LORD REDESDALEsaid that, in consequence of the alteration which had been made in the Standing Orders referring to the destruction of the houses of the working classes, upon the Motion of the noble Earl (the Earl of Shaftesbury), clauses to the effect desired by the petitioners had been inserted in Bills which were now before their Lordships' House. Those clauses would serve as guides for the future.
§ Petition ordered to lie on the Table.
§ House adjourned at a quarter-past Six o'clock, till To-morrow, half-past Ten o'clock.