§ MR. W. J. CORBET (Wicklow, E.)asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, If it is a fact that the Catholic population of Wicklow County stands to the Protestant in the relation of four to one; whether it is true, as reported in the papers, that in the trial of prisoners on capital charges at the late Assizes in Wicklow the juries were exclusively Protestant, and can he 1023 say how this arose; whether it is the fact that Wicklow County is exceptionally free from crime; and, whether in future the practice of bringing criminals from other counties for trial in Wicklow will be discontinued?
§ THE CHIEF SECRETARY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR) (Manchester, E.)The reply to the first and third paragraphs of the Question is in the affirmative. I am afraid I have nothing to add to my previous answer on the subject of paragraph 2. With regard to the last paragraph, the Attorney General for Ireland will, of course, continue to exercise the discretion vested in him by Statute.
§ MR. EDWARD HARRINGTON (Kerry, W.)May I ask the right hon. Gentleman, whether the result of these trials has not been that two men have gone to the scaffold protesting their innocence, and leaving written declarations of their innocence behind them, these men having been removed from the County Kerry to be tried by this jury so constituted in the County Wicklow?
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURI do not quite apprehend the object of the hon. Member's Question. Perhaps he will put it on the Notice Paper. I do not know whether the Question implies that the fact that these men did not confess their guilt had any connection whatever with the removal of their trial.
§ MR. EDWARD HARRINGTONMay I be allowed to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he has seen a report of the proceedings at the Coroner's inquest in this case, at which the High Sheriff, the Deputy Sheriff, and the Governor of the gaol gave testimony to these men's protestations of innocence?
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURNo; I have not read that.