§ MR. EDGEasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether his attention has been called to a ease which was brought before the borough justices in the town of Hanley on Monday the 23rd of February, and which was reported in the "Staffordshire Advertiser" of Saturday last, in which one Martin Leonard was charged with being drunk and disorderly, and assaulting a police officer, and was fined by the bench one guinea and costs. Afterwards, on being asked by the clerk of the court if he had any goods to be distrained upon, Leonard replied that he had a matchbox if that would do. Whereupon the magistrates, to mark their disapproval of his insolence, fined the prisoner five pounds and costs, or two months imprisonment in default; and, whether the magistrates in this case did not exceed their jurisdiction; and if he will order the release of the prisoner on the payment of the original fine?
MR. ASSHETON CROSS,in reply, said, there could be no doubt that if the facts of the case were as stated in the Question, the magistrates would have exceeded their jurisdiction. It appeared, however, from the statement of the magistrates, that the prisoner was brought before them on two charges—the one of having been drunk and disorderly, and the other of having assaulted the police. They decided, dealing very leniently with those charges, 430 to impose a fine of one guinea and costs, or one month's imprisonment in default of payment. The prisoner declared that he would go to prison, and while he was about to be removed the police brought under the notice of the Bench a previous sentence which had been passed upon him without the of option of a fine. It was in consequence of that previous conviction, and for no other reason, that the fine of one guinea had been increased in amount.