§ SIR GEORGE JENKINSONrepeated the Question he had asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department on Friday, as follows:—Whether he has seen a statement in the police report, as reported in The Times of the 17th instant, to the effect—
That at the Southwark Police Court a man named George Roberts, aged sixty-five, was charged on remand with being in the area of a certain house for the purpose of committing a felony; that further evidence was given by Richard Kemp, one of the warders at Wandsworth, who said that the prisoner was one of the oldest burglars in England, many years ago he was cast for death, and that sentence was commuted to transportation for life; that he received a ticket of leave, and had since been twice transported for life, and liberated with license; that at the September Sessions of the Central Criminal Court in 1866 witness was present when prisoner was tried for burglary, and sentenced to eighteen months' hard labour, and that he believed that he had since been convicted in the country. Mr. Burcham sentenced him to three months' hard labour for being in enclosed premises for an unlawful purpose.Whether that statement, as reported, represents the facts accurately; whether, if accurate, those facts are in accordance with, or contrary to, the existing state of the Law; and, whether in either alternative he has taken, or proposes to take, any steps to remedy such an anomalous and extraordinary state of things?
MR. BRUCEsaid, that a few minutes before leaving the Home Office, he received the result of inquiries which had been made into the matter. The statement to which the hon. Baronet; referred was not strictly accurate. Although the history of the prisoner was sufficiently eventful, it was not true that he had been sentenced to death, or that he had been twice transported for life, or that he had ever received a ticket of leave. He had been first convicted in 1837, not for burglary but for stealing in a house; and a sentence was passed upon him—which was not unusual at 162 that period—namely, of transportation for life; in 1842 he was found in England under another name, having escaped from the colony, and was again sentenced to transportation for life. He escaped a second time, and was found in England in 1851, again with another name, and sentenced to fourteen years' transportation. It appeared he had worked out that sentence, because the next record of him at the Home Office was in 1866, when he was convicted and sentenced to be imprisoned for eighteen months for a burglary. Of course, his previous sentences to transportation were not known at this time. Since then he had been twice brought up as a vagrant, and received each time a sentence of a month. It was obvious that upon the last occasion the sentence of fourteen years would have made no difference in his punishment; but the fact that he had escaped was altogether unknown until the statement was made by the warder. The story was a remarkable one; but he was desirous that the House should understand that this man had never received a license, and that his successive escapes were due to himself and his own merits, and not to the neglect of the Home Office.