§ MR. SAMUEL YOUNG (Cavan, E)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware that a man calling himself "Ex-Monk Widdows" has lately been preaching and lecturing in Belfast, under the auspices of the Belfast Protestant Association; and that his real name is Nobbs; whether he was sentenced in Toronto, Canada, to five months imprisonment, and sentenced again in 1888 by Mr. Justice A. L. Smith to ten years penal servitude for an unmentionable crime; and whether, seeing Widdows, alias Nobbs, was never a monk, the Government will proceed against him for obtaining money under false pretences.
§ MR. ATKINSONAt the request of my right hon. friend I will reply to this question. I am aware that an individual calling himself ex-Monk Widdows has been recently delivering lectures in Belfast. I am unable to say whether he is an accredited agent of the Belfast Protestant Association, though I observe he has been associated on several occasions with Mr. Arthur Trew, who, I believe, is a prominent member of that body. It is a fact that Widdows was convicted and sentenced in 1888 for the crime mentioned, and though I have not been able to procure a copy of any conviction against him in Canada, I have no reason to doubt that he was convicted and sentenced in Toronto for a similar offence. There are some legal difficulties in the course suggested in the last paragraph of the question, but the matter has been placed in the hands of the police.