§ Lord Ebringtonhoped the House would indulge him while he called its attention to the petition presented yesterday by the Member for Wigan (Mr. Potter) from a solicitor at Barnstaple, complaining of the arrest and imprisonment of a boy there for ballad singing, by one of the magistrates of the borough, he would beg leave to read a statement from the magistrate in question. That magistrate stated that he had some time ago committed on his own view a boy of eighteen years of age for singing and begging in the streets, that the boy was one of a whole family which the father and mother sent about the country to beg, and that they subsisted on the product of their children's begging. The magistrate added, that the case had been brought before the town-council in his absence, but at their next meeting he laid before them a statement of facts which had satisfied them and the public of Barnstaple of the propriety of his conduct. He must inform the House that he had known the gentleman in question for many years, and he was sure there was no individual less likely to exercise his authority as a magistrate in an arbitrary or unjust mannre. He believed that his conduct as a Magistrate had given general satisfaction to the town-council and inhabitants of Barnstaple.
§ Mr. Pottersaid, that the main fact of the committal of the boy was admitted, and that he thought a subject for complaint.
§ Subject dropped.