§ MR. J. M. MACLEAN (Oldham)asked the Under Secretary of State for India, If he is aware that after Mr. Taylor, ex-Commissioner of Patna, had declined the inquiry offered him into his judicial conduct at Patna, Lord Canning nevertheless insisted, in the interest of public justice, that an inquiry should be held into certain cases connected with the Patna riots, and called upon the Sudder Court of Bengal to revise the sentences passed by Mr. Tayler on persons who still remained alive, in order to remedy substantial injustice where such should appear to have been committed; that the Sudder Court accordingly, on June 29, 1859, forwarded to the Government of Bengal a Judgment which the Court had recorded after an examination of the papers; and, whether a copy of the judicial record of proceedings in this case can be laid upon the Table of the House, along with the Correspondence moved for yesterday by the hon. Member for North Kensington (Sir Roper Lethbridge)?
§ THE UNDER SECRETARY OP STATE (Sir JOHN GORST) (Chatham)My attention has been called to a letter from the Registrar of the Sudder Court to the Government of Bengal of the 29th of June, 1859, forwarding a Judgment of that Court on the cases of 21 persons then alive who had been tried and convicted by Mr. William Tayler for complicity in the Patna riots of the 3rd of July, 1857. After carefully going through the records of the trials, the Court thought the evidence altogether insufficient to sustain the conviction of 1285 18 of the prisoners. In another case the Court thought the evidence unsatisfactory, and recommended that his sentence should be remitted. In the two remaining cases the conviction was upheld. There is no objection to the production of these documents if the hon. Member will move for them.