My next discovery related to sanitary and police clauses, and particularly to those which pressed especially upon women. I maintained that there were no such things as good brothels; that they were illegal institutions, to be gradually and steadily suppressed by the growing morality of the people, who should be encouraged by increased facilities to set the law in motion; and that any legal distinction as to bad houses that were ‘a nuisance to the neighbourhood’ was a mischievous distinction. I also pointed out that the term ‘prostitute’ should be entirely struck out of all legislative enactments as an obsolete injustice, and that any necessary checks to growing vice should apply to ‘all persons habitually or persistently’ offending. These honest suggestions were considered quite impracticable in official circles; but I learned that the Central Government would be quite ready to strike out any unusual local provision in order to take all sanitary and police measures into its own hands. This appeared to me a most alarming intention. Surely a deadly blow would be struck at individual liberty if all sanitary and police regulations were to be drawn into the ‘vortex.’ The mistakes of municipalities rouse individual conscience, and may be turned to the education of the community; but take away this natural power of growth, and we become a feeble, self-seeking mass, swayed by demagogues, and the slaves of official Bastilles. I began to understand the wide bearing of a fact that had excited my surprise a short time previously. Scandals occurring in one of our new parks, permission had been obtained from the Local Government Board to place an additional policeman there. Noticing this fact, I asked our Councilman: ‘Why on earth did you consult the Local Government Board about our own policemen? Does not our Watch Committee attend to our police matters?’ He replied: ‘Oh, don’t you know that the Local Government Board pay part of our police expenses?’ Looking over the Borough Accounts for 1884, there, sure enough, I find this police item: Treasury contribution, £1,881 16s. 1d. Our poor tax-payers cannot pay their rent, so we rob Peter to pay Paul; we get money from the General Government, which all have to contribute to supply, with the idea of lessening local rates, and in return allow the central authorities to interfere with our police. Surely this is selling our birthright for a very deceptive mess of pottage! As our Town Council became aware of the legitimate discontent which existed respecting the Bill they had sent up to London, with really imperfect knowledge of its contents, they endeavoured with willing courtesy to meet the Ratepayers’ Committee, and at the last moment for legal opposition, certain important amendments were accepted by the Council, which removed the power of arbitrary arrest by the police, and softened some of the other harsh interference with individual rights.