Autograph Letter Signed ('Arthur W Peel') to Yonge, containing a description of the 'procession of working men' to a huge demonstration in Hyde Park.

12mo, 4 pp. Good, on lightly-aged paper. Peel is visiting Yonge's neighbourhood and he begins by describing the planned lodging arrangements. 'Shawford sounds very tempting the only drawback being railway journesy backward & forward.' He thanks Yonge for the 'hospitable' offer regarding staying at Otterbourne: 'whoever be our party I think it would be best not to troube you - best to come over to Otterbourne for lunch or tea as may be agreeable to you'. He will write again once his daughters 'have made up their minds'. He is 'nearly worn out with excessive House of Commons work', and is 'still feeling the effects rather severely'. Donald Owen has informed him that 'James' is 'seriously if not hopelessly ill'. 'The procession of working men has just passed our windows - having been organised to meet on the Embankment. It has taken one hour & three quarters to pass.' The 'immense crowd' seems to him to have been 'in the best of humours and in the full enjoyment of a holiday'. 'With two exceptions there have been no foolish mottoes on the banners: what will be said on the platforms in Hyde Park remains to be seen'. The Times, 5 May 1890, carried a long report on 'The Labour Demonstration', whose aim was, in John Burns' words, 'to demand a compulsory maximum eight-hour working day, international, and by law inaugurated'. Yonge was the younger brother of the novelist Charlotte M. Yonge.