methods which most respectable persons would hesitate to adopt. General Butler put a stop to these practices by ordering the military authorities to treat the culprits as if they were loose women plying a disreputable vocation. What the British Government had to do with the police arrangements of a foreign army in a foreign city it is not possible to conceive. Still, Lord Carnarvon, Sir John Walsh, and Mr. Gregory insisted that the Government should protest against General Butler’s order; and Lord Palmerston considered he was entitled to denounce the order as “infamous,” to assert that “Englishmen must blush to think that it came from a man of the Anglo-Saxon race,” and to declare that the course which the Cabinet would take “was matter for consideration.” As Lord Palmerston took no “course,” it is to be presumed that he preferred to “blush” for General Butler, rather than run the risk of being snubbed by Mr. Seward. On the 18th of July Mr. Lindsay, in spite of protests from Mr. Ewart, Mr. Clay, and some others, persisted in pressing a motion in the House of Commons which, if carried, would have pledged the Government to mediate between the belligerents in the interests of the Southern States. The debate was an elaborate argument on the part of Tory speakers for the recognition of the Confederate Government. But the responsible leaders of the Opposition took no part in it, and Lord Palmerston refused to abandon his policy of neutrality. Towards the close of the Session it was seen that the operatives of Lancashire must quickly sink into pauperism. The blockade of the Southern ports cut off the exports of cotton. The cotton mills in Lancashire, it was evident, must soon be stopped, and a teeming industrial population must become a prey to famine. Mr. C. Villiers, President of the Poor Law Board, accordingly introduced a Bill enabling Boards of Guardians to meet extraordinary demands for poor law relief. It provided that any parish which was overburdened by extraordinary pauperism might claim a subvention from the common fund of the Union to which it belonged, and that in certain cases one Union might call upon others in the county for assistance. Mr. Cobden, Mr. Ayrton, and Mr. Puller were strongly in favour of permitting distressed Unions to raise money by loans as well as by a rate-in-aid, and Mr. Villiers ultimately yielded to the pressure which they put on him.[131]