§ MR. H. B. SHERIDANasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether, in the case of Thomas Perry-man, now under sentence of penal servitude for life, it is true that he has refused permission to the prisoner's solicitor to see the prisoner for the purpose of obtaining his signature to a Petition to this honourable House in which he alleges his innocence and his grounds for so doing, and in which Petition he sets forth a letter lately received from Australia from the relations of the deceased as to her insane tendency, and generally maintaining the theory of suicide; and, if so, why such permission was refused?
MR. ASSHETON CROSS,in reply, said, it was quite true that permission was refused to Mr. Elworthy to visit the prisoner in gaol; but Mr. Elworthy was not his solicitor. That gentleman was told that it was quite unnecessary for him to obtain the signature of the prisoner to a Petition, because any Petition signed by the prisoner would be forwarded to the proper quarter. If the prisoner's solicitor visited him at the gaol, he (Mr. Assheton Cross) had not the slightest doubt he would be permitted to see him.