§ MR. ANDERSONasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether Mr. Baron Bramwell has ever been officially asked whether in his charge to the Jury on the "Mistletoe" inquiry he had used the words ascribed to him by the newspapers of the day (or words of anything like similar import), 259 these words being "a verdict against Captain Welch would give great pain to Her Majesty;" and "as Englishmen would you not be proud to think that the Queen travelled at a greater pace than anybody else;" and, whether he can inform the House what was Mr. Baron Bramwell's reply?
MR. ASSHETON CROSSNo, Sir, I have not thought it my duty to make any official inquiry into this subject. Since the Question of the hon. Member was placed upon the Paper, however, I have communicated with the learned Judge referred to, and I hold in my hand a letter from him. With reference to the last part of the Question, I have to state that the five or six words quoted in the Question bear a very different interpretation standing by themselves from what they do when read in connection with the rest of the learned Judge's language. With regard to the first words quoted in the Question, I have distinctly to state, on behalf of the learned Judge, that he not only did not say what he was supposed to have said, but that he said the negative of it. He "cannot but say that he was supposed to have said what no Judge on the bench could possibly have said," and he "cannot understand how he could be believed to have made use of those words."