§ MR. JACOB BRIGHTsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether an English woman of the name of Elizabeth Holt is now or has recently been a prisoner in Maidstone Gaol because she declined to subject her person to the fortnightly inspection of a surgeon; and, whether her refusal or the refusal of any other woman to submit to this outrage would be followed by repeated periods of imprisonment so as to amount practically to perpetual incarceration?
MR. BRUCEsaid, with the permission of the hon. Member, he would answer the second Question first. According to the law on this subject, under section 28 of the Act of 1866, any woman subjected by order of the justices to examinations by a surgeon, and refusing so to submit herself, was liable to imprisonment, with or without hard labour, in the case of the first offence, for a term not exceeding one month, and for a second offence three months. In the case of this woman, who lived in Woolwich, she attended fourteen examinations, and was sent to the hospital five times suffering from disease. In January last, after repeated warnings, she neglected to attend the periodical examinations; she was summoned, and sentenced to fourteen days' imprisonment.