§ MR. ANDERSON (for Mr. MUN-DELLA)asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, If his attention has been called to a Letter in the "Weekly Dispatch," signed by the five cabinet-makers who were convicted by Baron Cleasby under the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1871, in which they contradict in the most explicit manner the reply given on the 31st of May as to their treatment while in prison; if it is true, as stated by them, that they were ordered to pick oakum, and threatened with a reduction of diet in case of disobedience, and if, after repeated protests and explanations that they were not sentenced to hard labour, they did pick oakum in their cells at night, after working at their trade by day; and, if so, who is responsible for the excess of punishment?
MR. ASSHETON CROSS, in reply, side, he had made further inquiries into the case of the five cabinet-makers, and he had sent to the Governor of the gaol in which they were undergoing their sentence an extract from the Weekly Dispatch containing their letter to that newspaper, in which they contradicted the reply given by him on the 31st of May as to their treatment while in prison. He held in his hand the answers not only of the Governor, but also of the warder and sub-warder, and those answers were precisely the same as the reply which he (Mr. Cross) had previously given to the Question. He thought the best course he could take was to refer these answers to the Visit- 1815 ing Justices with the request that they should make a special report on the matter.