Alderman Sir Claudius Hunter then rose, and said: ‘I am honoured with the permission of his Majesty to propose a toast. I therefore beg all his good subjects here assembled to rise, and to drink that ‘Health and every Blessing may attend Her Majesty the Queen.’’ Which was accordingly done, with the utmost enthusiasm. The Lord Mayor then presented a gold cup, of great beauty, to the King, who said, taking the cup: ‘I cannot but refer, on this occasion, to the great work which has been accomplished by the citizens of London. The City of London has been renowned for its magnificent improvements, and we are now commemorating a most extraordinary instance of their skill and talent. I shall propose the source from whence this vast improvement sprung, ‘The Trade and Commerce of the City of London.’’ The King then drank what is called the ‘loving cup,’ of which every other member of the Royal Family present most cordially partook. His Majesty next drank the health of the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress, for which his lordship, in a few words, expressive of the deepest gratitude, thanked his Majesty. The chief magistrate soon after was created a Baronet. Prominent amongst the legislative beacons of the present century is the famous _Beer Act_ of 1830. Spirit drinking was terrible; a remedy was sought; the expedient adopted was the Beer Act. At the Middlesex Sessions, held on Thursday, January 21, 1830, Mr. Serjeant Bell alluded to the increase of the consumption of gin as a dreadful and horrible evil. A year ago there were 825 inmates in the Middlesex Pauper Hospital, but now the number was between 1,100 and 1,200, the increase being mainly attributable to the practice of gin drinking. Sir George Hampson said that the gin-shops were now decorated and fitted up with small private doors, through which women of the middle, and even above the middle classes of society, were not ashamed to enter, and take their dram, when they found they could do so unobserved. Sir Richard Birnie bore testimony to the dreadful prevalence of drunkenness in the Metropolis: _there were 72 cases brought to Bow Street on the Monday previous_, for absolute and beastly drunkenness, and what was worse, _mostly women, who had been picked up in the streets_, where they had fallen dead drunk: but while he deplored the enormity of the evil, he declared that it was difficult to find any remedy for it. Hoping to do good by substituting beer for spirits, an Act was passed in the 1st Will. IV., ‘to permit the general sale of beer and cider by retail in England.’ The following are its main provisions:-- 1. That any _householder_ desirous of selling malt-liquor, by retail, in any house, may obtain an excise licence on payment of two guineas, and for cider only, on paying one guinea. 2. That a list of such licences shall be kept at the Excise office, open to the inspection of the magistrates.