THE Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR O'CLOCK P.M. Resurrexi. SATURDAY, JUNE 12, 1875.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2009, 12 June 1875, Page 2

THE Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR O'CLOCK P.M. Resurrexi. SATURDAY, JUNE 12, 1875.

It is not often that Borough Councils or similar localbodieserron the sideof making too few bye-laws or regulations for the well-being and protection of the people over whose affairs they may be called upon.to preside; the reverse is too often the case, until bye-laws become not infrequently a burden. We cannot help thinking, however, that the Thames Borough Council committed, an .error in shelving the motion of Councillor Butt for a bye-law to restrict the driving of cattle through the streets of the Borough. There is an absolute necessity for some such provision, as has been proved by actual experience. Two accidents of a serious nature, and many narrow escapes, ought to have convinced councillors that they would only be consulting the safety of the burgesses by accepting the bye-law proposed by Councillor Butt. We are willing - to give the opponents of the measure credit for. being , actuated by the best of motives in in their opposition. They seem to think that it would prove a hardship for the im•Dorters of cattle to be restricted to driv-

ing them through the streets during | certain hours, when the thoroughfares j would be least likely to be used by the i inhabitants. We fail to see where the Hardship would come in. Such a restriction is admitted to be necessary within boroughs of much less importance tlftn the Thames, and the peculiar circumstances of our case—with the main road from the point of debarkation of cattle running through the most populous districts to the abbafcoirs—rendor it even more necessary for some bye-law of the kind proposed to be enacted. But admitting that some trifling inconvenience would be occalioned to importers of live stock, they are but a unit of the population, and all laws," whether local or general, should bo so framed as to .protect the interests of the whole, or thejnajority, which in this case, would nearly constitute the whole. The motion was lost through Councillor Butt.

being too confiding. If he had pressed it at the meeting held a fortnight ago, there is no doubt it would have been passed ; but he consented to an adjournment, and the result, as we have seen, is that the matter has been shelved for three months. There is another point which cannot be overlooked. The bye-law was negatived by the casting vote of the Mayor, who, in a Council of sis, adopted a course which, is no doubt positively correct but quite unusual, namely, by exercising a deliberative as well as a casting vote. Had it been otherwise .the motion would have been carried. There were three Councillors absent, two at least of whom would have voted for the motion. If any accident should occur during the next three months, a certain responsibility will attach to the Council for rejecting what we cannot but regard as a very necessary provision, and which ought long since to have found a place amongst the Borough Bye-laws. - ~