Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1859-01-26 00:00:00

TIPPERARY REFORM MEETING

The Freeman's Journal, of yesterday, had an account
of the meeting of the Independent Club, of the County
Tipperary, held in Thuries, on Monday, in reference to
the question of parliamentary reform, tenant right, and
other matters. The meeting was only preliminary to a
great county demonstrition and banquet ; but before
separating three resolutions were passed on the question.
Mr. Maher, who represented, the . county for several
years, proposed, and the Very Rev. Father Lafford, P.P.,
seconded a resolution to the effect that the efforts of Mr.
Bright to procure parliamentary reform was deserving of
the warmest approval and co-operation of the Irish peo-
ple, and, although there are some details of his project,
particularly with respect to the distribution of the repre-
sentatives of Ireland, which could be more favourable,
yet they hail the sound principles he has enunciated,
and, above all, his making vote by ballot an
indispensable condition of his bill, and the basis of his
electoral independence, without which the advantage
arising from an extension of the franchise would be lost
in Ireland by the extension of any oligarchical domination,
and the further prostration of the popular liberty.
Resolutions-were passed in favour of tenant right, and
one in condemnation of the proposed landlord's meeting.

The O'Donoghue was pre;cut, together with the Mayor
of Clonmel, and a number of catholic clergymen of the
county.

THE POLICE AND THE LICENSED
VICTUALLERS.

The Horning Advertiser, referring to a letter in the
columns of that paper, from a correspondent, relative to
the hardships and injustice to which the licensed vic-
tuallers of the metropolis are subjected, owing to the
capricious views which law and police courts alike take
of the way in which they ought to act when disturbances
are created, or improper language used, in their houses.

In the Court of Common Pleas, on Monday, Mr.
Skeate, a licensed victualler, had to defend an action
brought against him on the ground of alleged injury done

conduct of the latter. No decision in the case was come
to by the jury, and the result is that not only will Mr.
Skeate have to pay his own expenses, but the point is still
left undecided as to what amount of force a landlord may
use in expelling an ill-tongued or uproarious person from
his house.

Another case occurred at the Southwark police court,
on Friday, in which Mr. Carr, the landlord of the King's
Arms Tavern, Thornton-street, charged his barman with
being drunk and disorderly, and wilfully breaking a glass.
On this occasion the landlord, instead of himself expelling
the drunken disorderly person, called in a policeman, who
ejected him, at once. But for doing this the policeman
was severely reprimanded by Mr. Combo, the sitting
magistrate, who told him that the police had no right to
interfere in such cases, but that it was the duty of land-
lords themselves to turn out unruly characters.
What, under these circumstances are licensed victual-
lers to do ? One of their number is punished in a court
of law, by having to pay the costs of an extensive
defence, for expelling a person from his house who had
been using most improper language, and otherwise mis-
conducting himself. In another case, another licensed
victualler is told by a police-magistrate that he ought to
eject unruly characters himself, and that the police have
no right to assist any landlord to expel drunken and
disorderly persons. This is really a most painful
and perplexing position for licensed victuallers to be
in. How, we repeat, are they, under the circumstances,
to act ? Whatever course they pursue they are sure to be
wrong, either in the eye of the Court of Common Pleas, or
in that of the Southwark police court. We trust that
the licensed victuallers of the metropolis will not allow
the coming session to pass away without insisting on
having a clear definition of the law on the subject.