§ MR. P. A. TAYLORsaid, it would be in the recollection of the House that at an earlier period of the Session he had put a Question respecting the case of a prisoner confined in Mountjoy Prison, near Dublin, who had been put on penal diet and under penal regulation for refusing to state his religion. He now begged to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland, If he will state to the House what new rule, if any, he has thought it advisable to lay down in respect to the treatment of prisoners in Ireland who are neither Catholics, Anglicans, or Presbyterians?
THE EARL OF MAYOsaid, in reply, that he had made careful inquiries into the subject, and had found that it was impossible to frame any general rule that was applicable to all cases. In the case of any prisoner refusing to state what his religion was directions had been given that the Governor of the Gaol should make a Special Report to the Government upon the subject, when full inquiry would be made into the circumstances of the case. It would not do to permit any prisoner, by declining to state what his religion was, 913 to escape from all the rules and regulations of the prison.