§ Any three or more persons assembled in any part of any street for the purpose of betting shall be deemed to be obstructing the street, and each of such persons shall be liable to a penalty of forty shillings, and any police officer may take into custody without warrant any person who commits such offence in view of such police officer.
§ MR. MCCARTAN moved to omit all the words after "forty shillings." He explained that the first portion of the clause provided that where three or more persons assembled in any street for the purpose of betting they should be deemed to be obstructing the thoroughfare, and should be liable to a penalty of 40s. The latter part of the clause left it in the power of a constable, if he judged such persons were there for the purpose of betting, to arrest them without a warrant, and his Amendment was to omit words giving this power. He was happy to say the promoters of the Bill had consented to this Amendment, which he now formally moved.
§ COLONEL WARING (Down, N.)should be sorry to interfere with any compromise the promoters of the Bill had arrived at with regard to this burning question, but unless the powers in the Bill were sufficient to put a stop to the disgraceful scenes which took place in certain neighbourhoods when telegrams were expected announcing the decision of any great race he should not be inclined to agree with the Amendment. He assumed, however, the provision would not prevent the police summoning parties, or proceeding against them in the police court. [Mr. MCCARTAN: "No, it will not."] That being the case he saw no objection to the Amendment.
SIR W. H. HOULDS WORTHobserved that on this clause the Committee were not perfectly unanimous. The Committee, 1672 however, felt that they had no particular reason in this case for departing from the precedents which existed in other Acts of Parliament. The clause, as it stood, was precisely the same, in regard to the powers given, as the Metropolitan Streets Act, 1867. The same powers were also given by the Birmingham Corporation Act, 1883, and there were other Acts in which power was given to policemen to interfere without warrants, as in this clause. Whether there was any Act in which such powers were omitted, he did not know, but for his part he thought the proposal was one which might very fairly be considered by the House on its merits. It was very desirable that there should be as much uniformity as possible in any clause of this kind. But at the same time, he understood that in Ireland this clause did not exist in any Act which was at present in force, whilst they knew that the organisation of the police was rather different to what it was in this country. For these reasons he felt it might be quite right to make an exception in this case.
§ Amendment agreed to; Bill to be read the Third time.