§ CAPTAIN M'CALMONT (Antrim, E.)asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether a mock funeral was recently held in Woodford, county Galway, at which a large number of persons were present, who marched up and down the town with a band playing, preceded by a coffin bearing the inscription "Death to Orangemen and Freemasons;" whether the coffin was set fire to and burnt, amidst great public exultation and delight, within a few yards of where Finlay was brutally murdered last March; whether the police were confined to barracks during these proceeding's; whether in Lurgan, a short time since, a number of Orangemen were accompanying the funeral of a member of the Orange Institution, and were ordered by the police to take off their colours when going through the town; and, whether he can give any reason for the apparently different course pursued by the police on these occasions?
§ THE CHIEF SECRETARY (Mr. JOHN MORLEY) (Newcastle - on - Tyne)The reasons for the apparently different courses pursued by the police on these two occasions is, that in the case of Lurgan there was sworn information that a serious collision would take place if the procession attempted to pass through the Catholic portion of the town wearing Party colours. In the case of the Woodford procession no such collision was to be feared.
§ MR. JOHNSTON (Belfast, S.)said, he would remind the right hon. Gentleman that he had not answered the first and second paragraphs of the Question.
§ MR. JOHN MORLEYsaid, he believed that those paragraphs gave a fairly correct description of what occurred.