§ MR. HUGH MASONasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether he would order an official inquiry into the causes and circumstances attendant on the lamentable steam boiler explosion that occurred at Batley on Wednesday 19th January, and is reported to have killed as many as sixteen persons and injured eleven others (ten of those killed being women and children; and, whether the engineer officers of the Board of Trade who attended the inquests consequent on the boiler explosions that occurred at Ruabon on Saturday 20th November, 1880, and at Maidstone on Friday 3rd December, 1880, have reported: and, if so, whether he would allow the Reports to be printed and presented to Members of Parliament?
§ SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT,in reply, said, that the Maidstone Report had been received and was in the hands of the printer. It would shortly be in the hands of Members.