§ THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURY,who had given Notice—
To call the Attention of the Government to large Placards stuck up in various Parts of London, announcing the Assemblage of vast Numbers of the People in Hyde Park, on Monday, the 23rd, under the Summons of the Reform League,said: My Lords, when I gave the notice which appears upon your Lordships' Paper, I was not aware that the subject of the proposed Reform Meeting in Hyde Park had been discussed in the House of Commons, where a satisfactory answer was given by the Secretaries of State, both of the present and of the late Government. I hope and trust that the Government will persist in reserving the Parks exclusively for the recreation of the people. Let them be kept solely and entirely for the recreation of the people without any respect to partizans, whether of Reform, or of Garibaldi, or of the Pope. I do not say this because I am adverse to public meetings, for perhaps no man in England is so much indebted to public meetings as myself. I have carried a great portion of my measures by their means, and it is my intention, if God gives me health and strength, to hold a great many more. But I have always held them at convenient times, and in convenient places; and therefore I hope that the working classes will respect the rights of others, and not inflict upon others an inconvenience which they would be the first to resent if inflicted upon themselves.
§ House adjourned at a quarter past Seven o'clock, to Monday next, Eleven o'clock.