§ MR. M'ARTHURsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Why ministers appointed by the Wosleyan Conference for the spiritual benefit of Wesleyans in the Army, who have been, and still are, authorized to visit and minister to Wesleyans in Military Prisons, and whose services have been, and still are, so afforded without any payment being solicited or received from the public funds, are, on the removal of Military Prisoners to the Convict Prison at Mill-bank, refused admission to that Prison, while Episcopalian, Presbyterian, and Roman Catholic ministers are admitted to minister therein?
MR. BRUCE, in reply, said, it was always most painful to him to be obliged to oppose any obstacles to the voluntary services of the excellent men who gave religious instruction to the inmates of the convict prisons. Not only in the military prisons, but also in all the county prisons, arrangements were usually made by which the ministers of Dissenting bodies who chose to attend voluntarily could do so; but this had never been the practice in the great convict establishments. There the religious ministrations hitherto had been exclusively performed by two chaplains—one of them connected with the Church of England, and the other a Roman Catholic; and, so far, these services had been performed without any complaint whatever. A short time ago arrangements were made by which military prisoners were collected in Millbank in great numbers, and the question had to be considered whether, consistently with the strict discipline required in this immense establishment, the arrangement as to military prisons could be adopted, and he came to the conclusion that it was impossible it could be carried out. It would have been impossible to have admitted Wesleyan ministers and to have 1430 refused admission to Baptist, Independent, and other ministers. The case of the Presbyterian ministers was different, because in the Army, Presbyterian chaplains were regularly appointed as representing Scotchmen, and it had long been the recognized custom to appoint Episcopalian, Roman Catholic, and Presbyterian chaplains. He did not, therefore, feel justified in refusing admission to a Presbyterian chaplain; but he could not venture, without injuring the discipline of this great convict prison, to extend the rule any further.