§ MR. MACDONALDasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, If his attention has been directed to the report of the coroner's inquest which appeared in the "Yorkshire Post," dated the 6th inst., touching the death of three men who lost their lives in the Birley Colliery, near Sheffield, on the 26th ult.; whether he has seen in that report that it is stated there were only two safety lamps for the mine, and whether that be true; whether it be true that fire damp had been seen in the mine in the month of April; and if, in consideration of the finding of the jury, he intends to direct that the manager and the under viewers be proceeded against for the offence contemplated in the sixty-first clause of "The Coal Mines Regulation Act, 1872?"
MR. ASSHETON CROSS,in reply, said, he believed the facts stated in the Question were substantially true. In 1280 consequence of the finding of the jury, he at once directed that proceedings should be taken against the parties in charge of the mine.