§ MR. P. A. TAYLORasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether his attention has been called to the refusal of the Magistrates at the Hammersmith Police Court to put in force the Sunday Observance Act against tradesmen supplying Kensington Palace with salmon and ice on Sunday last, while for months past small traders and costermongers have been continually punished for similar offences; and, what steps he proposes to take in regard to the refusal of the Magistrates to put in force the Sunday Observance Act? He also wished to ask whether, if it should be discovered that the prosecution of a number of poor people under the same Act has been carried on under some misapprehension, the right hon. Gentleman will not take some steps to restore to them the little earnings of which they had been deprived?
MR. BRUCEI have received, Sir, from the Hammersmith magistrates an explanation of their conduct. On Monday last Mr. Ingham, on the return of his colleague from his holiday, consulted with him as to the propriety of checking certain prosecutions which had caused much angry feeling in the district without producing any countervailing advantages. 1222 They determined to check all such prosecutions unless they were instituted by some public authorities, such as the churchwardens and overseers, or the police. Whether they were right or not in taking that course it is not for me to say, nor is it my duty to compel magistrates to hear cases. In case of a refusal the proper course to be pursued is for the party aggrieved to apply for a mandamus to compel them to perform their duty. As, however, my hon. Friend has, according to his usual practice, interpolated in his Question a reference to the distinction made between the poor and the rich, I am bound to say, on behalf of the magistrates, that from whatever source the application for a summons had come the answer would have been the same. The object of the magistrates was to put an end to what they believed to be a very oppressive and mischievous application of the Act of Charles II., and had an application been made by Mr. Bee Wright or anyone else against poor persons the answer would have been the same as it was in the cases referred to in the Question. I have no reason to believe that any of these convictions were illegal. In the greater number of cases the magistrates, exercising their discretion, have announced that they would grant no costs, and I believe the effect of that announcement has been greatly to discourage these prosecutions. Some of the magistrates considered, however, that they were not empowered to do so, and that the costs ought always to follow a conviction. But whatever the decision arrived at, it was, at all events, a legal one, on a matter within the discretion of the magistrates, and therefore it is impossible for me to interfere with the proceedings.