§ SIR GEORGE BOWYERsaid, he rose to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department a Question with reference to some proceedings at the Bow Street Police Court, which were reported in The Times of Wednesday, the 24th instant. On the previous day a boy named Nicholls, twelve years of age, was charged with stealing a horse and cart from Covent Garden Market. His father stated that till about a month ago he was very honest, but that then, owing, he believed, to getting into bad company, he fell into evil courses, and he desired to send him to a reformatory. Mr. Corrie asked him if he would pay 5s. a week for the lad's maintenance; and he replied, that although he only earned 15s. a week, and had a wife and three other children to support, rather than the boy should go on as he was doing he would pay that sum. The mother stated that she was a Roman Catholic, and that, although her husband was a Protestant, the boy had been brought up in that religion. Mr. Corrie said that his religion did not appear to have done him much good, and perhaps the best way would be to change it. However, that was for the parents to settle. Upon consultation, the parents desired to have him brought up as a Catholic; but, being told that it would be easier to get him into a Protestant reformatory than into a Catholic one, they agreed to leave it to the magistrate to settle. He wished to know, Whether the right hon. Baronet had made any inquiry into that extraordinary statement of the magistrate; and whether he was prepared 1529 to give the House any information on the subject?
§ SIR GEORGE GREYsaid, that he knew nothing of the case until the hon. Baronet gave him private notice of the Question which he desired to put. He then looked at the report in the newspapers, and saw nothing in it which would justify him in calling upon the magistrate for an explanation. Mr. Corrie had however, forwarded to him a memorandum in which he said that a Roman Catholic gentleman, a member of the Bar, had called his attention to the report, which was understood to imply that he had endeavoured to induce the boy to change his religion, adding that, from his knowledge of Mr. Corrie, he was sure that he would not have done so. Mr. Corrie stated that the facts of the case were, that a boy twelve years of age was brought before him for a second time on a charge of felony. Mr. Corrie decided that it was a case which would justify him in sending the boy to a reformatory, and made inquiries as to the religion of his parents in order to determine where he should be be sent. The parents, of whom one was a Protestant and the other a Roman Catholic, were willing to leave the decision of that question to the magistrate; and he, having ascertained that all the instruction the boy had received was from a Roman Catholic priest or instructor, decided that the boy should be sent to a Roman Catholic reformatory at Walthamstow, if there were room for him there.