§ MR. MALLOCK (Devon, Torquay)asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, If he has received a letter from certain members of the Salvation Army, alleging that, having been sentenced at the Torquay Petty Sessions, on the 26th of March, to 14 days' imprisonment, they were not liberated until two days after the expiration of their sentence; and that, during the time they were detained in the police cells at Torquay, they were given an insufficient amount of food, and had neither bedding nor light; and, to what extent the said allegations are accurate?
THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. MATTHEWS) (Birmingham, E.)The prisoners in question were sentenced at Torquay Petty Sessions on the 26th of March, but they did not reach Exeter Prison till the 27th; and, as the term of the imprisonment went, by law, from their reception in prison, they were not entitled to discharge till the 9th of April, when they were released. The reason of their detention in Torquay during the night of the 26th was that a noisy crowd of several hundred persons surrounded the Court House, seized the horses of the omnibus which was to convey the prisoners to the Railway Station, and endeavoured to upset the omnibus. This crowd remained, making a disturbance about the Court House till a late hour, and the authorities did not deem it prudent to remove the prisoners till the following morning, when the crowd had dispersed. The Chief Constable informs me that while in the police cells at Torquay the prisoners had sufficient food and light. They had the ordinary wooden cell beds and two blankets each.