§ MR. HOPWOODasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether it be the fact that Christina Vivian, aged 18, pleaded guilty at the Middlesex Sessions on the 10th instant to stealing two gold watches value £30 from the shop of a jeweller, and if he would ex-plain to the House the special circumstances under which she was discharged by the Assistant Judge without sentence, on her own recognizance and that of a 395 gentleman who did not wish his name to be disclosed?
MR. ASSHETON CROSS,in reply, said, he believed it was a fact that Christina Vivian, aged 18, pleaded guilty at the Middlesex Sessions on the 10th instant to stealing two gold watches, value £30, from the shop of a jeweller. He could not answer the other part of the Question otherwise than by reading to the House an extract from a rather long letter which he had received from the presiding magistrate, and which he would be happy to show to the hon. Member if he wished to see the whole of it. The prisoner, the magistrate wrote, pleaded guilty. It was her first offence, and she was most strongly recommended to mercy by the prosecutor, whose counsel was instructed earnestly to pray the Court to forbear from passing sentence, and thus afford her an opportunity of retrieving her character. The counsel for the prosecution having assured the Court that he had ascertained that the person proposed as surety, and who was then in attendance to enter into the required recognizance, was a person of unquestionable responsibility and respectability, it did not appear to the magistrate to be in accordance with practice to examine him in open Court in such a preliminary proceeding.