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no right to put up Hastings on that hotel and other houses in London Road. When the buildings east of the Archway were first put up, Hastings did not claim them; it could not even claim the old Priory; and at one time, it only embraced the eastern parishes. Hastings could not have claimed the now coveted district, and when [in after years] an attempt was made to get for it a "West Hastings" Act, he opposed, and was very glad he had done so. That district was a great boon to Hastings. By its rating and other sources wealth was streaming into Hastings; then why should the Council inflict an injury upon it, by insisting on a change which the inhabitants did not wish and the visitors - by whom they lived - did not wish? The action of the Council in this case was un-English; for, nothing was done by the English Government without in some way consulting those who were interested. To act otherwise would be the rule of a despotic Government; and he did not remember any act of the Council so despotic as this. He had spoken to almost everyone in the district on the subject, and had only found two persons who were in favour of the resolution of the Council. There might ve a score, but he did not believe that so many could be found in the whole of the district. For the last 25 years they had been known as living in St. Leonards. In 1851 the Hastings Act had no control over that district, and the Board of Health only embraced it as a district, there being nothing in that Act which gave the Council power to change a name. Lawyers agreed in that, and they all knew that it was mostly the business of lawyers to disagree. They (the Council) might as well go over to Winchelsea and write up Hastings on that part of it which belonged to the borough (Cheers, and shouts of "No, No", "Ridiculous", "You are laying it on too thick!"). Anyway, he supposed he should be quite in order in saying that they might as well write up Hastings at the St. Leonards Archery Ground. (Ald. Ross, "Quite So!") He next referred to the St. Leonards park, the St. Leonards Schools, the St. Leonards Mechanics' Institution, the St. Leonards Wesleyan Chapel, the St. Leonards Railway station, &c., as being in the district claimed as being in the town of Hastings. He could bear out Mr. Eldridge's remark that the West Ward Councillors were always ready to support improvements in the East Ward, but he intimated, that the great preponderance of numbers in the latter enabled them to cary anything they intended against the former; hence their present action. When, at the previous meeting, he heard Ald. Ginner say that about £4,000 out of £15,000 had be(sic) spent on that district, it became him to reply that the West Ward -