rendered newspapers liable to suppression for inciting to violence, widened the summary jurisdiction of stipendiary magistrates, and levied fines of compensation on districts stained with murderous outrages. It was at once seen that the chief merit of the Bill lay in the fact that it frankly attacked and punished criminals, thereby reversing, and by implication condemning, the feeble and futile policy of Mr. Forster, who attacked and imprisoned at will persons who were merely suspected of crime or of inciting to crime. Great doubts were expressed as to the utility of the Press clauses, Englishmen who are not political partisans being at all times sceptical as to the good that is done by suppressing newspapers and bottling up all their evil teaching in private manifestoes for secret circulation in disaffected districts. Some Radicals also thought the powers of arrest after nightfall given to the police were rather vague, and suggested too painfully a revival of Mr. Forster’s fatal principle of coercion on suspicion. But, on the whole, the Bill was well received by the best men of both parties, the responsible Tory leaders giving the Government much loyal support, though some of their followers carped at the measure.[177] The Bill was obstructed in the usual manner by the Irish Members, who had but few Radical allies. On the 16th of June only seven clauses out of thirty had gone through Committee. On the 29th it was clear a crisis had come, and on the 30th there was a disorderly all-night sitting, which ended in the suspension of sixteen Irish Members. Later in the day nine others were suspended, and, after sitting for twenty-eight hours, the Bill passed through Committee. Urgency was voted for its next stages, and the Bill read a third time on the 7th of July. The Lords passed it promptly, and it became law on the 12th of July.