§ MR. BULWERasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether his attention has been called to the wretched condition of the Police Court at Wandsworth, as described by the Chief Commissioner of Police at page 46 of the Appendix to his Annual Report for the year 1881; whether he has received a joint letter, dated in the month of November 1882, and addressed to him by the magistrates attached to the Courts of Hammersmith and Wandsworth, calling his attention to the unfit state of those Courts, and reciting and confirming the Report of the Chief Commissioner of Police so far as it refers to those Courts; and, whether he is prepared to take any, and, if so, what steps to provide a proper Court at Wandsworth, and to improve the condition of the Court at Hammersmith?
§ SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTYes, Sir; it is quite true that those Police Courts are in a most unsatisfactory state, and I am anxious to put them on a different footing. But there is a financial question involved in this matter, and that is who is to pay for them. There has been already a good deal of jealousy incurred owing to the Imperial funds being used for this purpose, while local 196 Police Courts are maintained out of local rates. For the present, therefore, the matter is in abeyance.