QUESTION. OBSERVATIONS. (Hansard, 11 June 1877)

§ LORD TRURO
asked Her Majesty's Government, Whether they have had their attention called to a recent highway robbery on Blackheath? In asking the Question, he felt bound to say that the district in question had been until recently perfectly free from serious outrage; though he had been in the habit of passing over the Heath at all hours of the night and day during the last 10 years, he had never met a disreputable character on it, except during holiday times; neither could he call to mind that he had ever met a policeman on Black-heath. But he resided in the neighbourhood, and his premises had been robbed four or five times. He thought there was a want of additional supervision in the outlying parts of the Metropolitan Police District. The inspectors of that force were intelligent and highly respectable men, and nothing could be said against them; but, as the value of property had so much increased in the Metropolitan Police Districts, he thought 1567 that a superior class of men ought to be employed as Inspectors. He begged to ask Her Majesty's Government, Whether any; and if so, what steps have been taken to protect the district from a recurrence of such outrages as those recently reported?

§ EARL BEAUCHAMP
said, that in the case of the outrage referred to by the noble Lord, some delay took place before it was made known to the police, and then the description of the offenders was so vague as to afford little clue to their identity. The outrages of which information had been received were these—on the 28th ult., the carriage of Mr. Hodgson was stopped, and that gentleman compelled to give up his purse by two men of small stature and well-dressed. On the 4th instant two men in dark clothes attempted to stop Mrs. Potter's carriage; but the coachman drove the horses on. Two or three days afterwards two men answering the same description called on the coachman of Colonel Rich to stop; but the coachman declining to do so, they ran by the side of the carriage for a short distance and then went away. No immediate alarm was given to the police in any one of the three cases, though, had it been, there was every probability that the highwaymen would have been apprehended after the attack on Mr. Hodgson and there was a moral certainty that they would have been after the attack on Colonel Rich. A description given considerably after the occurrence, and stating that the highwaymen were "young, well-dressed, and appeared to have received a good education" was of much of a clue to the police. The police force had been much strengthened on the Heath and the approaches to it; but he thought their Lordships would concur with him that it would not be well to go into particulars as to the measures which had been adopted. He would, therefore, merely add that measures such as those referred to by the noble Lord had already been taken.

§ THE EARL OF REDESDALE
said, that if the noble Lord (Lord Truro) let it be known that when he went out he carried a revolver he would not have much to fear from the Blackheath highwaymen.