The Express.
London, England, 1868-12-21 00:00:00

THE NIGHT HOUSES.

THEM is agitation among the keepers of the
night-hongos about the Haymarket. The magis-
trates art again firm ; the police have roused from
their long dream, and words and things are
found to be really what they profess to
be. Keeping open after the legal hour is
punished by fine, and an appeal is now being
made to the quarter-sessions to decide upon
the precise limits of the night-house keeper's lia-
bility. It is earnestly to be hoped that there will
be no squeamishness as to the interpretation of the
law ; and that the interests of public morality will
be duly cared for by the magistrates. Profligacy
has lost half its grossness by the early closing act.
The Haymarket is comparatively pure at the time
when its noisome revels were formerly at their
height—that is from one to two in the morning.
The charge-sheets of the Vine-street and Marl-
borough-street police-stations show a startling
diminution in the number of " cases " brought in
during what were formerly the busiest hours.
The haunts of debauchery and vice are silent
when they were formerly most noisy ; and
the strings of wretched revellers who formerly
trooped from tavern to tavern during the small
hours betake themselves home just as they used to
be beginning the evening a few years ago. Of
course there is less drinking in consequence, and
equally of course the night-house keepers are in-
dignant and evasive. The social rite known as
" squaring the peelers " having been recently ex-
posed, and a clean sweep having been made of the
while= guardians of the district, convictions
before the police magistrate are a neces-
sary consequence. The interests of the
harridans and ex-prizefighters who keep
these rendezvous of sin and shame are dia-
metrically opposed to the law, and their
anxious hope is to frubtrate it by allowing their
customers to linger after the acknowledged hour.
Various pretexts are employed in justification of
this course. The liquor was served before 1 a.m.,
the men and women found drinking are lodgers,
living in the house, the people assembled meet
as recreative philosophers and for conversational
purposes alone. There shallow, flimsy excuses
have deceived no one but the legal authorities
before whom they have been pleaded. and these
can have only accepted them in a Piekwickian
sense. Let it be clearly understood by the night-
house keeper that irregularity is followed by con-
dign, and, above all, by certain punishment, and
his attempts to return to the bad old system will
be speedily at an end. His calling is noxious to
the community ; mercy or indulgence to him is
cruelty to the thoughtless and young.

DIA= OF BIR TROMAB ORE/MET, M.P. FOR
Bourn Dsmarysienui.—Sir Thomas Greeley, one of the
conservative members for South Derbyshire, died at
Shipley Mall on Friday afternoon, attar a few days' ill-
ness, m the 30th year of his age. Oa Thursday evening
Dr. Gull, of London, saw the deceased, end everything
that medical science could suggest was brought into use
to stem the spread of the complaint, but without avail, as
he died as above stated. The event has canned quite a
gloom in , all classes feeling at the sadden
death of Sir as, and expremlsympathy for his
bereaved widow and young children. ear Moms spoke
at a conservative dinner at Saaoor on Friday in last wesh
went to Mr. Moody's, of Shipley, the same evening, and
never left hie bed atterwardn—Nntimyeass Isamu.
Iturrisros.—The ooneereativas of Hastings have
petitioned mignon the sena of Keene. North sad
, the alleged green* d bribery, its. throat
their " ageab." The liberal temaittee met on Friday
propose that a guarantee and didaftuad should be
raised for meeting the threetened preseediage,
should they be earned on. The enweeb
prientd their ocandesee as to the remit, and deeleredliheir
bow that the late election
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