§ MR. WARTONasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether it is his intention in the case of Charles Frost and Edward Smith (who were on the 1st of November 1878 convicted of burglary, but who being subsequently shown to be innocent received on the 26th of August 1880 a free pardon) to recommend that they, or either of them, should receive any compensation or solatium in the shape of money or otherwise?
§ SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT, in reply, said, that after careful inquiry into this case he had come to the conclusion that it was a case of mistaken identity, and consequently he had advised that a free pardon should be given to those men. But he did not find that the circumstances of the case brought it within the very rare instances in which compensation had been made for the miscarriage of justice. He was happy to say that, as to one of the men, he had been able to find employment for him in the Public Service, for which the man had expressed himself grateful. The other man he had heard nothing of since.