§ LORD ELCHO (Ipswich)I have given my right hon. Friend the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs private Notice of a Question, Whether there is any foundation for the report, extensively published in Continental papers, that several persons accused of complicity in the late Bulgarian rising had been put to torture by the Bulgarian authorities?
§ THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE (Sir JAMES FERGUSSON) (Manchester, N. E.)My noble Friend informed me of his wish to put this Question as I entered the House; but presuming that he refers to the arrest of M. Karaveloff and others detained in prison at Sofia, I do not think that I should delay to state that Her Majesty's Government heard some days ago that on the rumour of those persons having been ill-treated in prison an official inquiry was ordered by the Regents, and the officials who conducted it reported positively that none of the prisoners complained of having been beaten or otherwise ill-treated, and that the prisoners were treated with all the consideration due to their former position.