At the town meeting in August already referred to, when the addition to the public debt was made, a Corporation Bill was spoken of, which appeared to be of very great importance, and which was to come before the town later. I therefore watched the notices by the church doors, and marked down the date of the Statutory Meeting, which must be called in order to sanction this Bill. I was much surprised not to see attention strongly called to this important measure by the local press and others; but the local politicians were all in such a state of excitement because Hastings was to lose one of its Parliamentary representatives that the way in which municipal affairs were carried on seemed to excite no interest. I called at the Town Clerk’s Office a few days before the meeting to sanction the Bill was to take place, and asked for a copy of the Bill, but was told that there were ‘no copies’ for ratepayers; neither could the Bill be seen. I spoke to about ten persons in the course of the day, but no one knew anything about the Bill. I then wrote to several ratepayers to beg them to attend the Statutory Meeting. One replied that there must be a mistake as to date, naming a meeting three days later, which, being a ‘Party’ meeting on Redistribution, entirely drew attention from the municipal meeting. Another householder consulted a gentleman friend, who told her that the proposed Bill was one to lessen taxation, so there was no need of attending the meeting. I was unable to find a single ratepayer who knew anything about the Bill, or had even heard of it. The time came, a very stormy evening; about seventy persons attended out of over 8,000 ratepayers. No one had seen the Bill, which, from the short abstract given by a Councillor, was evidently of the utmost importance to every class of the inhabitants, and particularly to the industrious classes. It was urged by the Town Council Committee in charge of the Bill that no opposition to it should be made, for two reasons. In the first place, the next day was the last chance of registering the Bill for the present Session of Parliament, and a year would be lost if the Bill were not accepted that night; in the next place, it was stated that any opposition would be very expensive to the town, for, as they had already paid £500 for the expenses of the Bill, and would pay about as much more to complete it, if any opposition were raised it would cost the town some thousands of pounds.