§ Mr. Brightwished to call the attention of the noble Lord the Secretary for Ireland (Lord Eliot) to the case of two women who were convicted at the late Roscommon assizes for murder, and were left for execution on the 31st of this month. The crime was committed so far back as June, 1843, and the coroner's inquest which had sat on the body of the man alleged to have been murdered, returned a verdict of suicide. Since then, a woman who said she slept in the room where the murder was committed, had come forward to prove that the man was murdered, and his throat afterwards cut to make it appear that he had committed suicide, which was the verdict of the coroner's jury. The jury before whom the case was tried at the assizes, however, had, after twenty-two hours' deliberation, returned a verdict of guilty of the crime of murder against the wife of the deceased and her sister. They had, however, recommended the prisoners to mercy, but the judge, as he understood, had refused to forward that recommendation to Dublin. The chief witness, it appeared, was a woman of very indifferent character, and a very low state of morality existed amongst the whole of the parties implicated. The case seemed to he one well worthy the attention of the Government. If the man had been murdered, an inquiry should be entered into with respect to the conduct of the coroner, before whom only one witness was examined, and who had called no surgeon. The inquest altogether was most unsatisfactory and insufficient, and he wished particularly to call to it the attention of the noble Lord.
§ Lord Eliotthought, that the object which the hon. Gentleman had in view would have been answered by merely calling his attention to the circumstances of the case, without, as he had done, rather overstepping the limits usually observed in putting questions in Parliament. The hon. Gentleman thought that the coroner ought to be called to account for his conduct, but he would recollect that Government had no authority over this officer. With respect to the circumstances of the trial he would undertake to put himself immediately in communication with the Lords Justices in Ireland. He hoped this would be satisfactory to the hon. Gentleman.