§ [SECOND READING.]
§ THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL FOE IRELAND (Mr. ATKINSON,) Londonderry, N., in moving the Second Reading of this Bill, said the object 74 was to extend to Ireland a few sections of the Burgh Police (Scotland) Act of 1892 for the purpose of putting marine dealers under certain restrictions. It was found recently in Ireland, especially in Dublin, that the number of petty larcenies was largely on the increase, and not only were they committed by professional thieves, but, it was much to be regretted, by children of tender years who were seduced from the paths of honesty and probity into crime, by the facilities afforded by the receivers of stolen goods. The object of the Bill was simply to put these marine dealers—brokers, as they were called in Scotland—under restrictions, so that they should keep a book in which should be entered the name of any person who brought goods for sale, and the description of the goods; that they should keep the goods for fourteen days; that they should not deface them; and that they also should keep a record of the name of the purchaser to whom they might afterwards dispose of them, and to give facilities to the police for the inspection of those books. This would not interfere with the honest dealer, but it would enable the police to detect crime.