HC Deb 01 August 1881 vol 264 cc356-7
MR. CARINGTON

asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether his attention has been called to the case of two poor women who were charged by the police at Islington Police Court on the 20th of July 1881 and fined sixpence and four shillings costs for causing an obstruction by selling flowers in High Street, Islington; whether it is true that women have been in the habit of selling flowers at that same spot for the last twenty-five years, and that the women did not occupy any part of the pavement, but only stood in the gutter; whether he will inform the House why, if any obstruction really exists, the tradesmen of that locality whose goods are displayed on the pavement, thereby causing a great obstruction to foot passengers and also temptation to theft, were not summoned also; and, whether he will issue orders to the police not to interfere with these poor women in the future and thereby prevent them from earning an honest living, and, in the case of one of them, from supporting her aged parent and her family?

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

, in reply, said, that since the hon. Member had given Notice of the Question he had had an opportunity of inquiring into it, and he found that summonses were issued as stated in the Question; but that it was on the application of the shopkeepers in the neighbourhood, which, in the particular spot mentioned, was very crowded, and it was complained that the baskets that were put there interfered with the narrow footway. There had been proposals made to the women who sold flowers there to take a station at a spot not very far distant. That, however, they did not seem disposed to adopt; other summonses had consequently been issued. He had communicated with the police on the subject, and they, as well as himself, were averse to persons engaged in these harmless occupations being interfered with. The Chief Superintendent of Police had communicated with the President of the London Flower Brigade Mission, and it was hoped that, with the co-operation of the Mission, the flower girls would be induced to remove to new stations selected for them. In the meantime the summonses had been withdrawn.