A warning to Fascists that anyone interfering with Jews would be sent to prison was sounded in Old Street Court today by Magistrate Herbert Metcalfe in sentencing Ernest Williams, a member of the British Fascist movement, to ten dollars fine or a month’s imprisonment for using insulting words to a Jew.
“I am quite satisfied,” the magistrate said in passing sentence, “that interference with Jews exists in the East End.”
“If there’s this sort of baiting going on against respectable people, whether Jews, Gentiles or anyone else,” he continued, “it will be stopped. I shall not hesitate in sending straight to prison the first man brought before me for interfering with Jews.”
The same court recently heard the Crown Prosecuting Attorney, in pressing a case against a Fascist propaganda officer who had made an anti-Jewish speech, announce that the police were under standing orders to arrest all persons indulging in anti-Jewish talk.
The order was issued by the Police Commissioner of London following an address in the House of Commons by Sir John Simon, Home Secretary, in which he stated that persecution of Jews in London’s East End would be suppressed.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
