§ MR. MACDONAI beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether it is a fact that the Magistrates of Lurgan on the 19th instant fined a man 40s., or one month's imprisonment, for cheering Lord Salisbury at an Anti-Home Rule meeting held there; and, if so, whether he will take steps to remit the fine, inasmuch as the man was guilty of no crime or offence?
MR. J. MORLEYsaid, that the man in question was fined 40s., or one month's imprisonment, by half-a-dozen Magistrates sitting at Lurgan Petty Sessions, on the 19th instant, for calling for three cheers for Lord Salisbury in Church Place, Lurgan, within 20 yards of a Roman Catholic Institution, the windows of which had been smashed by a Protestant mob the previous evening. This man was charged on a summons by the Town Commissioners with riotous behaviour, inasmuch as the crowd at the time was a mixed crowd, and that a riot had been very narrowly averted a few minutes previously. No meeting was being held; but a drumming party of Unionists had just passed round the church in streets where a crowd of persons of different political and religious opinions was assembled. This man had appealed to the Quarter Sessions.