§ MR. ROWLANDS (Kent, Dartford)To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware that three prosecutions have taken place recently at Dartford police court, under the circumstances that for over twenty years meetings and religious services have been periodically held in front of the Bull Hotel, Dartford, within the knowledge of the authorities; that on the 24th instant Ensign Roy of the Salvation Army was summoned for obstruction at this spot by holding a religious service, and was convicted and fined 20s., or in the alternative, 1698 fourteen days imprisonment; and that the Salvation Army held another service on the same spot on Sunday last, and the same action has been followed by the authorities in the case of Mrs. Roy; and whether he will advise the extension of the clemency of the Crown by remitting the sentence.
(Answered by Mr. Secretary Gladstone.) I had not previously heard of the matter, but I will make inquiry.