§ MR. LAWSON (St. Pancras, W.)asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he was aware that, at the Rochester City Petty Sessions, on Saturday, the 13th April, when A. H. Filley, a prominent local Conservative, was summoned for assault and for using threats towards Robert Collins, the publisher of the Rochester and Chatham Times, a Liberal newspaper, no fewer than eleven magistrates were present on the Bench, although the usual attendance of justices is not more than three or four; whether the decision of the magistrates in the case was in accordance with the legal advice tendered them by their clerk; and whether, under these circumstances, he 1537 will take measures to extend the jurisdiction of the present stipendary magistrate at Chatham to the adjoining city of Rochester?
§ *THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (MR. MATTHEWS,) Birmingham, E.I am informed by the clerk to the Justices that the occasion referred to ten magistrates were present, the average attendance for the past twelve months being six. The magistrates' clerk advised the bench not on the merits of the case, but only on questions of law raised by defendant's solicitor, as to the power of the magistrates to exercise any discretion after hearing the evidence. On this point the magistrates granted a special case, which is now pending in a superior court. There is nothing in the case which appears to render necessary any extension of the jurisdiction of the Chatham Stipendiary, or to justify any action on my part.