§ MR. MACDONALDasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether his attention has been directed to the case of Thomas Cunliffe, of West Houghton, county Lancaster, who was tried on Thursday, the 8th inst., before the Rev. J. S. Birley, on the charge of placing two tallies on two tubs that did not belong to him, value about one shilling and sixpence, and sentenced to three months' imprisonment with hard labour; whether the man was properly convicted; if guilty, whether the punishment was not excessive; and if it is true that the magistrate called out, as narrated in the "Bolton Chronicle," that the panel "would have a share of the treadmill?"
MR. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, that, in his opinion, the man was properly convicted, and the punishment was 731 not excessive. It was not a case of stealing the tallies, but of taking a tally from one tub and placing it on another, by which he would get credit and pay for himself for the work done by a fellow-workman. He could not conceive a more disgraceful or a meaner act on the part of a collier, especially, under the circumstances, because the man who really worked the coal could never find it out. He should not, therefore, wonder if the magistrate had made use of the expression referred to, for he considered that he would have been justified in doing so.