no good [a voice, "Serve them right, too!].
Ald. Ginner remarked that Mr. Putland stood before them in a new light character. He had always before been known as a reformer, and he would venture to assert that if the petition had been against two post-offices in any other town, Mr. Putland would very willingly have joined in with the measure; but as it happened to suit his views, Mr. Putland on the present occasion did not mind having a little of the "Circumlocution office." How very apt people were to get a little blinded by anything that touched themselves. Two post-offices in this borough was an anomaly, of which the Government ought to be ashamed. [It is allowable conjectural that those whose views Mr. Putland represented would have been at a lost(sic) to know where the shame had to come in; also, if one post-office was a good thing, what part of a Reformer's creed it was to declare that one good thing was better than two?] He firmly believed that their representation to the Postmaster would have no effect, but if they petitioned Parliament session after session. The Post Office would not like it, and if the Council persevered, the arrangements would ultimately be altered. He should certainly vote for the motion. [Bound to party, politically and otherwise, Ald. Ginner availed him not of his usual astuteness in not perceiving (as was afterwards proved) that petitions would also be presented, with far more numerous signatures by the persons more directly concerned, and that Parliament would simply refer the matter to the Postmaster-General, whose province it was, and though the subject might have been a little more protracted and party feeling still further embittered it would have ended as it really did, in the Postmaster's ultimation against the Council being final.]
Coun. Bromley repudiated the feeling which Mr. Putland seemed to entertain that there was a desire to injure the town of St. Leonards. His own feeling was simply that places should be called by their right name.
Ald. Ross did not wish to say anything particular in reply. The thing was plain enough. He could not see that if there was only a branch office at St. Leonards, that town would be at all injured [Strange motion of two professedly progressive aldermen - Ross and Ginner - that a branch office for a rapidly increasing population was better than a general office, and that by the effort of Mr. Putland to retain the advantages of a general office, he as a reformer was going back. On being put to the vote the motion was carried by 15 against 5. Out of 24 -
