HC Deb 09 May 1911 vol 25 cc1021-2
Mr. CATHCART WASON

asked whether the right hon. Gentleman will give instructions that poor persons shall not be interfered with by the police while exercising their art of fortune telling as long as persons are permitted to carry on the same pursuit in the purlieus of the West End, and advertise openly the profession of the supernatural?

Mr. MASTERMAN

In reply to a similar question, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, when he was at the Home Office, in 1893, gave the following reply:— "By the Vagrancy Act, 1824, every person using any subtle craft., by palmistry or otherwise, to deceive and impose on any of Her Majesty's subjects is to be deemed a rogue and a vagabond, and to be subject, on conviction, to imprisonment. The mere practice of palmistry is not, so, far as I am aware, illegal; the essence of the offence created by the Statute is the intention to impose, and the object is to protect the young and the ignorant. The police have instructions to watch cases of-suspicion, and whenever there is good ground for believing that fraud or imposition is being practised they will be directed to prosecute." The practice laid down by my right hon. Friend is still followed by the police.

Mr. CATHCART WASON

May I ask the hon. Member whether he is aware that Mr. Plowden, the police magistrate at Marylebone, said, "there were so many of her craft at the present time advertising themselves in the streets of London who were not interfered with, and who had no doubt a more fashionable clientele than she could boast of, that he could not but feel some kind of pity that she should be the only fish that was landed out of the shoal that was vexing the streets of London just now. He hoped that all theses fortune-tellers would see this case, and realise that they, too, were in imminent danger of being brought before the court," and whether this does not show that there is one law for the rich and another for the poor?

Mr. MASTERMAN

As far as the general question is concerned, if my hon. Friend will give me any special case which he thinks comes within the interpretation of the law I will have it inquired into.