§ CAPTAIN NORTON (Newington, W.)To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called by the Council of the Borough of Southwark to the difficulty experienced in dealing with disorderly houses in their district, in view of refusals of magistrates presiding at police Courts in the borough to convict, and of the penalties imposed in the case of persons prosecuted for keeping disorderly houses, and whether he can take any steps in the matter.
(Answered by Mr. Secretary Akers Douglas.) A complaint was made to me last year by the Council of the Borough of Southwark to the effect indicated, but I cannot say that the facts of the particular case to which reference was made were such as to satisfy me that the complaint was well-founded. The magistrates dealing with these cases exercise a discretion with which I have no power to interfere.