§ MR. E. JENKINSasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether it is true, as stated in the pubic journals, that debtors under detention in prison are compelled by new regulations purporting to have been issued under the Prisons Act, 1877, to eat their meals and keep the surplus food in their cells; pass 21½ hours out of 24 in solitary confinement; that they are allowed only 2½ hours for exercise, the prisoners being marched out into a yard and kept at a distance of ten or twelve paces from each other, so as to prevent talking, and warders are stationed at convenient spots to see that the rule of silence is observed, the debtors in effect being almost treated as criminal prisoners; and whether these rules are to be relaxed?
MR. ASSHETON CROSS, in reply, said, he had heard that some of the recent rules had unfortunately been misinterpreted in some of the prisons, and that the consequence had been that some of the gaolers thought that an alteration had been made in the previous practice. On hearing these complaints, one of the Commissioners went down, and explained what the rule was intended to convey. Since then there had been no further complaint.