§ MR. M. M. BHOWNAGGREE (Bethnal Green, N.E.)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Homo Department whether he is aware that, owing to insufficient fencing, upward of 2,300 feet of the frontage of the Regent's Canal is in an entirely unprotected state; that in the first 8 months of 1895 there had been 31 cases of drowning and 43 persons rescued from drowning; and that within the last seven weeks there had been 15 similar accidents within the Bethnal Green, Shoreditch, and other eastern boundaries of the canal; and, if this be so, whether any measures will be adopted, without further delay, to sufficiently fence the canal so as to prevent the occurrence of such accidents?
§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir MATTHEW WHITE RIDLEY,) Lancashire, BlackpoolThe number of accidents stated in the question is, I am informed, unhappily correct. As I explained, however, on a previous occasion, the canal banks are private property, and I have no power to compel the company to take measures to prevent the occurrence of such accidents.