OBSERVATIONS. (Hansard, 19 March 1875)

§ SIR WILLIAM FRASER
, in rising to call attention to the Regulations for the Government of Prisons approved by the Home Secretary as regards persons wait- 111 ing for bail or remanded By a magistrate, and to the infraction of such rules in the Clerkenwell House of Detention, said, that after the warning he received last night he would do what he could to avoid bringing down upon himself and his subject the ridicule of the Home Secretary. There was something ludicrous, no doubt, in persons who were waiting for bail, or who had been remanded by a magistrate, scrubbing their own cells; but he would remind the right hon. Gentleman that when Cawnpore was taken the native chiefs who had participated in the mutiny were compelled to scrub floors as the most degrading act which it was possible for human beings to perform. He would now refer to a case of which he had no personal knowledge, but the particulars of which had been communicated to him by letter. A man named Mackay, living at 32, Coleman Street, near the Bank of England, was charged with some trifling offence, for which no punishment was inflicted upon him beyond being required to find bail for his appearance if called upon. His friends were not in London, and during the interval which elapsed before they entered into the required recognizance, he was detained in Holloway Prison, where he was obliged, although labouring under an attack of bronchitis and acute rheumatism, to scrub stone floors, on one occasion for eight hours almost continuously, with cold water; and the effect upon him was that he had to be removed to the hospital. Those were the facts of the case, and, if incorrect, he would hand the author of them over to the tender mercies of the House. They all remembered the case of the foreign clergyman who, about two years ago, having been arrested on a charge which was dismissed, was compelled to scrub the asphalt floor of his cell, and perform other menial offices. He, as a magistrate, had visited the House of Detention in which that gentleman was confined, and ascertained that all unconvicted prisoners were treated in the same way, while there were many unconvicted prisoners in the House of Detention who would be glad, for a trifling consideration, to do the work. He therefore gave notice at the Quarter Sessions of a motion to abolish that part of the rule which referred to the cleaning of their cells by prisoners on remand, and, after a very stormy discussion, on demand- 112 ing a poll, found that the resolution was carried; and not lost, as the Chairman had declared it to be. No alteration had, however, since been made in the practice, and he could only suppose that the amendment of the rule had not received the sanction of the Secretary of State. In his opinion, however, the broad principle of justice required that the change he recommended should be made on behalf of a friendless and obscure class of persons who might be innocent; who frequently were proved to be innocent; and had, at all events, not been shown to be guilty. He sincerely hoped that view would be acted upon by the Government, especially as he understood, from what had passed between them, that it was in accordance with the wishes of the right hon. Gentleman. With respect to what had occurred last night, he might be permitted to say that, having been a Member of the House before the right hon. Gentleman, he had never seen a Minister turn round to his Party and ask for a cheer, without eliciting a response to his call; but he had never before known a person in the eminent position of the right hon. Gentleman to turn round to his own Party and, speaking to a humble and constant supporter, ask for the derision which the right hon. Gentleman had succeeded in obtaining yesterday.

§ MR. W. S. STANHOPE
, in cases such as the one which had been brought under notice, regarded it as a defect in the law that an innocent person, who was unavoidably injured by its action, could not obtain compensation for the wrong which he sustained. He should be very glad if that fact were taken into consideration by Her Majesty's Government.

§ SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSON
regretted that, having spoken once upon the Motion to which that of the hon. and gallant Gentleman was an Amendment, his right hon. Friend the Home Secretary was precluded from replying to the Amendment and the observations which had been made by its Mover. With regard to the Amendment itself, he could assure his hon. and gallant Friend that the subject which he had brought under the notice of the House was one to which the attention of the Government had never been called. The Inspector General of Prisons stated in his last Report that there had been no complaint with regard to the rules and 113 regulations for the treatment of prisoners. It was only that morning that the Home Office had received any complaint with regard to the particular case to which his hon. and gallant Friend had referred, and he could assure him that no time would be lost in inquiring into the facts. That being so, he hoped the Amendment would not be pressed to a Division.

§ MR. DISRAELI
I feel it my duty to make a few remarks upon certain observations of my hon. and gallant Friend, which I heard him make with regret, in reference to the manner in which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department received his Question in reference to this subject yesterday. I have for many years known my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Kidderminster; I have valued his acquaintance, and I am very glad to see him again in the House of Commons; but I cannot but feel that on this occasion he has shown a sensitiveness for which really there was no adequate reason. I happened to be in the House when the Question was asked by my hon. and gallant Friend; I heard the Answer of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, and, as both an impartial witness, and an old friend of the hon. and gallant Member I must express my own feeling as to what occurred—namely, that nothing of the kind which my hon. and gallant Friend has expressed was ever intended by the Secretary of State. If the House was fuller I could appeal to many hon. Members to confirm my view of what passed. I think that has occurred on this occasion, which in this House happens to all of us sometimes, and at this time it happened to my hon. and gallant Friend, to misunderstand an observation or an action. I am authorized by my right hon. Friend, who by the Rules of the House is unable again to speak, to state that nothing was further from his mind than to express by word or action any such feeling as my hon. and gallant Friend has described, and which he will, I trust, from this moment discard from his mind.

§ SIR WILLIAM FRASER
said, he would withdraw his Amendment.