§ MR. LABOUCHEREI beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he has noticed that at the Borough Court at Colchester, last Wednesday, Charles Tripp, an old soldier, who was on his way to visit his son at Aldershot, and who had expended £5 which he had had on starting from Yorkshire on his journey, was sentenced to 14 days' hard labour for sleeping in a shed, in which he had taken shelter on a storm coming on?
§ MR. MATTHEWSI have made inquiries into the case, and I am informed that it is not the fact that Tripp was sent to prison for sleeping in a shed in which he had taken shelter from a storm. He was sentenced to a fortnight's imprisonment because he had been habitually drunk and because he was found sleeping in a barn the worse for drink, with loose matches in his pocket.