§ THE LORD MAYOR OF DUBLIN (Mr. SEXTON)(for Mr. P. M'DONALD) (Sligo, N.)asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether it is a fact that Mr. M'Hugh, Mayor of Sligo, who has been sentenced to six months' imprisonment, as a common criminal, for articles published in his newspaper, The Sligo Champion, was on Wednesday last, at 4 o'clock in the morning, removed from Sligo Prison to Londonderry Prison; whether, on arriving at Londonderry Prison at 11 o'clock in the forenoon, he was refused any breakfast, on the ground that "he had got it in Sligo;" whether the alleged breakfast in Sligo was some cocoa, which at that early hour he was unable to taste; whether it is consistent with the Irish Prison Rules to oblige a prisoner of delicate constitutution to travel for seven hours without food, and then at the end of a long and painful journey to be refused any nourishment till the ordinary dinner hour; and, whether he can state the reasons for which Mr. M'Hugh was removed from Sligo?
§ THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. MADDEN) (Dublin University)(who replied) said: I am informed that Mr. M'Hugh did not leave Sligo at 4 o'clock in the morning, but by the 5.15 train, and that he arrived at Londonderry Prison at 11.30 a.m. Breakfast was refused at Londonderry; but 10 minutes after Mr. M'Hugh had asked for breakfast his dinner was taken to him. The breakfast at Sligo consisted of bread and cocoa, which Mr. M'Hugh at first refused; but he afterwards partook of it, and had plenty of time to finish it had he been inclined to do so. The journey occupied 6½ hours, not seven, and the prisoner had not been without food. He was removed from Sligo because it was considered inadvisable that he should be imprisoned in the town of which he is Mayor and in 1656 the prison of which he is a Visiting Justice.