§ MR. HOPWOODgave Notice that on Friday he would ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether he was aware that printed rules were recently sent to the county gaol at Kirkdale, purporting to come from the Commissioners of Prisons, which contained, among other things, that women prisoners should be put on the treadmill, and whether such hard labour had not been for many years held to be unfit for women?
MR. ASSHETON CROSShoped the House would permit him to answer the Question at once. He understood that in preparing the Papers referred to, 1303 which were abstracts of the Prison Rules, orders had been issued to keep the male and female prisoners distinct. And in the copy that was sent to be printed the rules were word for word the same, except the portion relating to females. This was a mistake, and their being circulated to Kirkdale and other prisons arose, as he understood, by one of the clerks sending them out before they had been revised by the Commissioners. He need not say that the error had been immediately corrected.