§ DR. BOWRINGrose to put a question respecting a transaction, the circumstances of which had already been made public. The statement put into his hands was this: Two children, the son and daughter of a man named Lee, who had lived at Chingford, Essex, for two years and a half, occupying a cottage for which they paid 2s. 6d. a-week, were detected by the foreman of a farmer picking up and eating turnips; he took them to Chingford, in order to look for a police officer, then to Waltham Abbey, five miles off, to try to find a magistrate, and then brought them back three miles to Mr. Preston, a magistrate at Sewardstone, before whom the foreman swore that the six turnips found in their possession were worth 3d., and thereupon the children were convicted in a penalty and costs amounting to 1l. 0s. 6d., and in default of payment sentenced to fourteen days' imprisonment in Ilford Gaol, whither also, during the severe frost, they were on the same day taken. The following evening the father, who had borrowed the money, paid the fine. The father and mother were willing to swear that they had nothing to eat on those two days, Saturday and Sunday, but a 2 lb loaf. On the Monday, the day after the children were released, a man and his daughter, who had been committed to Hertford gaol by the same magistrate, for stealing coals to the value of 1d. were released, the grand jury having ignored the Bill. He begged to ask whether the Home Secretary had directed his attention to this conduct?
§ SIR G. GREYanswered, that no representation had been made to him with respect to the facts referred to. A statement had appeared upon the subject in the newspapers very much to the same effect with that now made, and in consequence of the notice of this question, his attention had been called to that account; but in The Times of that day (yesterday) the hon. 696 Member would find a letter giving a very different narrative indeed of the transaction. The only additional account which he (Sir G. Grey) had received was one obtained on a reference to the commissioners of police, Chingford being within the metropolitan police district; and that confirmed in all essential particulars the curate's statement in The Times of that day, showing that Mr. Stephens, who sent the original narrative, was very greatly misinformed indeed as to the facts of the case. It was quite true, that these children, whose ages were 11 and 12, not 6 and 7, were apprehended for stealing turnips; but they were growing in a field in which there were no cattle; and the children were fined 2s. 6d. and costs. There were some statements in the police report with respect to the habits of the family, into which he (Sir G. Grey) did not think he should do right to enter; they were gypsies, and very well known in that part of the country, and they were in possession of a pony. He should be happy to put that statement into the hands of the hon. Member, and he would then see that a complexion was given to the case very different from that which it presented as originally stated.