§ CAPTAIN M'CALMONT (Antrim, E.)asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether a man recently arrested in the county Kerry, in the act of moonlighting, was found to have a letter from him (the Chief Secretary) in his pocket; whether the Chief Secretary had recently been applied to for an appointment on behalf of the above mentioned recently arrested man; and, whether this letter was to the effect that the said moonlighter would be given the appointment as requested?
§ THE CHIEF SECRETARY (Mr. JOHN MORLEY) (Newcastle-on-Tyne)A man was arrested some short time ago, not, as the hon. Member supposes, in the County Kerry, but in Clare, on the charge of having fired a shot into a neighbour's dwelling. In his pocket the police found a letter from me. [Laughter.] That letter was not from me to him, but to a third person. It had no reference, direct, remote, or implied, to any appointment for the arrested man or anybody else. It was a formal and official acknowledgment of an inquiry about a police hut. I informed my correspondent that the hut could not be removed. No application of any kind has ever been made to me on behalf of the arrested man, of whom I never heard until I saw his name in the police report submitted to me in the ordinary official course. The hon. and gallant Gentleman has, therefore, as has before happened to him, been entirely misled.