§ MR. DAWSONasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether his attention has been drawn to the charge of Mr. Justice Butt at the Liverpool Assizes on the 5th February, who directed the attention of the Grand Jury to the preponderance of Irish names on the calendar; whether the calendar contained the following names, viz. Gee, for murder; Clifford, for attempt to wreck a train; Vaughan, Price, and Hadfield, for the murder of a boy named Burns; White, for stabbing; M'Lean, Campbell, and Ballantyne, for murder; and M'Comb, for manslaughter; and, whether only four names, Flanagan, Higgins, Duggan, and Dempsey were Irish, or what other names were on the calendar? In putting this Question, I would ask whether it is probable that the female prisoners convicted may not be married women who may have borne previously non-Irish names?
§ SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT, in reply, said, he had no means of being able to answer the Question. The Assize Calendars were in due course sent in to the Home Office; but this particular one had not yet been received, and if it had, it was not possible with certainty to fix the nationality of the prisoners merely by reading their names.
§ MR. DAWSONThe right hon. and learned Gentleman did not answer the Question. I ask as to the correctness of the preponderance of the names on the Paper.
§ SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTI have no means of answering the Question.
§ MR. DAWSONDid not the Judge name the nationality of the prisoners to the predjudice of those who happened to bear Irish names?