§ MR. JOHNSTONI beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if his attention has been called to the following observations of Mr. Justice Murphy, at the last Kilkenny Assizes, in sentencing a prisoner to 18 months' imprisonment for a brutal assault on two young children:—
A very absurd interpretation was put upon that clause by some magistrates. A crowd of fellows, like a flock of crows, went into a public house three miles away from where they slept the night before, and they were then held to be bonâ fide travellers. When they got into the public house they got as drunk as they liked. … Those fellows were no more bonâ fide travellers than the prisoner would be after going from where he now was to where he would consign him for some time. The interpretation which some magistrates put upon the bonâ fide clause was simply absurd. The assault which the prisoner committed on these children was a brutal and a savage one. … The only excuse the prisoner had was that he was in a famishing condition for drink. No term could be too strong to apply to the prisoner's conduct, it was savage, wanton, and reek less, and he would sentence him to 18 months' imprisonment with hard labour;and, whether the attention of Irish magistrates will be called to the Judge's declaration of the Law?
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURWe have no power to give instructions to magistrates on points of law; but I have no doubt the publicity he desires to give to the ruling of the learned Judge will be obtained by the fact of my hon. Friend having put the question to me in this House.