As soon as the Corporation Bill was thus nominally accepted by the burgesses, copies of the Bill were allowed to circulate. I saw at once, on scanning this enormous Bill of 243 folio pages, thus sprung upon the town, that it was a very retrograde Bill, and would prove especially tyrannical to the poor. Being fully convinced that a fundamental duty of any community is to guard the industrious poor from being crushed into paupers, I looked at the Bill from that point of view, and was shocked by it. It was drawn up to favour the growth of that modern mistake, a fashionable lodging-house town, by endeavouring to attract rich temporary visitors, instead of promoting permanent productive industry. By its provisions it largely increased the debt of the town; it withdrew expenditure from control of the ratepayers; it provided for a largely-increasing bureaucracy, by placing all the new institutions under officials of the Town Council; it confirmed and established a virtual octroi on coal and the necessaries of life; it introduced the most minute and arbitrary regulations in relation to building, sanitary inspection, police arrests; it re-enacted the obsolete regulation which regards vice as female; and in many other ways it sought to convert the Town Council into masters instead of servants of the people. I immediately commenced asking individual ratepayers if they had seen this Bill, which interfered with every class of inhabitant. No one had seen it, and later inquiry seemed to prove that not one member even of the Town Council itself had read the Bill carefully through, outside the little Parliamentary Committee who followed the guidance of the London official agent. I am glad to say that the first note of serious public alarm was sounded by the Medical Profession, who, finding they were to be turned into family spies by this Bill, refused to submit, and, having an organized medical society unanimous in opinion, they commenced an opposition to those objectionable clauses which affected their position. But weeks of precious time were lost before attention was aroused to the generally tyrannical character of the Bill. At last the growing discontent found a voice in an active, enlightened burgess. A crowded public meeting was held, attended largely by the poorer ratepayers, and a committee was formed to see what amendments could be introduced. But there was then not time to examine thoroughly this enormous Bill before it was read in Parliament. Here, again, two circumstances were noteworthy. First of all, the complete indifference of the richer inhabitants to the Bill and to all that involved trouble on their part, with the dread of the poorer inhabitants of the frightful law expenses which opposition would entail.