§ MR. MONTAGU SCOTTasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether his attention has been called to a statement in the "Morning Post" that, in consequence of the existing state of the Law, by which the expense of the burial of those drowned in the Princess Alice disaster, and cast or brought ashore at Woolwich and Plumstead, will have to be paid by those two parishes; and, that bodies of drowned persons are now not recovered from the Thames, but are allowed to float up and down in the tide, as in the rivers of India; and, if he will take immediate steps to alter the Law, and thereby prevent so gross a violation of public decency?
§ SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT,in reply, said, that when he was asked if "he would take immediate steps to alter the law," hon. Gentlemen in that House must know that that was no easy thing to do. He, however, quite admitted that there was a distinct grievance in this case, and the hon. Member for Greenwich (Baron Henry de Worms) had introduced a Bill for the alteration of the law in this matter, and that Bill would receive the favourable consideration of the Government.