§ MR. O'DONNELLasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether his attention has been directed to the evidence taken before a Committee of the House of Lords to the effect that juvenile vice is increasing to an "appalling extent" in England and especially in London; whether the attention of the Government has also been called to the fact that the unchecked sale of cheap publications of an immoral nature, and even of cheap manuals professing to give instruction in immoral practices, has been carried on to a large extent, especially in London; and, whether he will cause inquiries to be made as to the influence which the wholesale dissemination of cheap tracts and pamphlets, through the agency very often of young boys and girls in the streets, have had, and are calculated to have, upon the "appalling" increase of juvenile depravity described before the Committee of the House of Lords?
§ SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT,in reply, said, that he was very sensible of the gravity of the evils to which the hon. Member referred, and he hoped that in the next Session of Parliament something might be done on the basis of the very valuable Report of the House of Lords. With reference to that part of the question referring to the employment of children in the streets, he believed that that was one of the greatest sources of evil that could be imagined. He was very glad to hear that in many large towns in England measures had been taken to restrain that species of employment, and he hoped that something more would be done in that direction.