§ DR. KENEALYasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, If he would state to the House the grounds on which he advised, or who advised, that Hopwood, a witness for the prosecution in the Tichborne case, and who was convicted of felony last August at the Cheshire Assizes and sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment with hard labour, has had six months of that imprisonment remitted; and, if he will have any objection to lay upon the Table of the House any Papers or Documents relating to the said remission of sentence, and the grounds thereof?
MR. ASSHETON CROSS, in reply, said, that with great respect he must refuse to make any answer to this Question. He should, without the least shrinking from responsibility, object to the Question upon many grounds if it was founded upon a true state of facts; but he objected to this Question entirely upon the ground that it rested upon the assumption that a state of facts was true for which there was not the slightest pretence or foundation. This man never had a remission of punishment; and if the hon. Member wished to have any documents he was prepared to lay upon the Table a certified copy of the record of conviction, which stated that the man was convicted and sentenced to six calendar months' imprisonment; also the warrant of commitment, which stated that he was to be imprisoned and kept to hard labour for six months, and the certificate of the Governor which stated that the prisoner had served for a period of six months.
§ DR. KENEALYsaid, he wished to state, in justification of his Question, that every newspaper at the time stated that Hopwood was sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment.
§ Afterwards—
§ DR. KENEALYasked the right hon. Gentleman the date when the police authorities at Scotland Yard first communicated to the Treasury that Jean Luie was a ticket-of-leave convict; whether the said Jean Luie is still in this country, and, if confined, in what prison; and, if the said Jean Luie ever reported himself to the police after he got his ticket-of-leave; and if so, when and where?
MR. ASSHETON CROSS, in reply, said, he thought the time had almost come when Questions of this kind might be stopped, for the privilege of interrogating Ministers was liable, like every other privilege, to be abused. It was not a correct statement of fact to say that the police authorities at Scotland Yard had ever communicated to the Treasury that Jean Luie was a ticket-of-leave convict. On Friday, November 28, 1873, after he had given his evidence for the defence, and after the evidence contradicting it had been given and the case for the prosecution had closed, two persons came into Court and identified Luie. He was now in a convict prison; but it 556 was not the practice—and he (Mr. Cross) would not break through it upon this occasion—to state in what prison a convict was confined. Jean Luie never reported himself, so far as he could learn, after he got his ticket-of-leave; indeed, he immediately went to Liege, in Belgium, and the police knew nothing about him.