§ MR. W. A. MACDONALD (Queen's Co., Ossory)asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether it is true, as stated in The Daily News of Saturday, that on the previous day at the Marylebone Police Court, a woman named Fowles, who had acted as cook in a gentleman's family for over two years, and had hitherto borne a good character, was sentenced by the magistrate, Mr. Cooke, to three months' imprisonment, with hard labour, for giving a poor woman named Box, a halfpenny bundle of wood, a beetroot, and a basin of soup, the property of her master; and, whether he will inquire into the circumstances of the case, with a view, if possible, of mitigating the severity of the sentence?
§ THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. STUART-WORTLEY) (Sheffield, Hallam)(who replied) said: It appears that the newspaper account of this case incompletely states the facts. The magistrate was satisfied that the particular theft charged, though small in itself, was not the first of which the prisoner had been guilty, but was one of a systematic series of small robberies from her master. Under these circumstances, the Secretary of State sees no reason to interfere with the sentence.