§ MR. HEALYasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether Colonel Valentine Baker, when imprisoned for twelve months, was treated as a first-class misdemeanant, and whether as such he was not allowed to read any newspapers, English, Irish, Colonial, or Foreign, illustrated or otherwise, that he chose to pay for; whether English prisoners who are merely suspected of crime are while awaiting trial only allowed to provide themselves with London daily newspapers and a paper from their own locality; and, whether in case the London weekly newspapers, or the "Newcastle Chronicle," the "Graphic," or the "Illustrated London News," were sent to such prisoners by their friends, these papers would be stopped by the prison officials?
§ SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTThe case to which the hon. Member refers occurred before the prisons passed under the control of the Government; and, therefore, I cannot state what course was taken by the local authorities in that case. With regard to the treatment of English prisoners before trial, the question as to what newspapers shall be supplied to them lies within the discretion of the Visiting Committee. What view the Visiting Committee may take of The Newcastle Chronicle and of the other newspapers to which the hon. Member refers, I am, of course, quite unable to state.