§ DR. TANNER (Cork Co., Mid)I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether Captain Richard Tonson Rye, of Ryecourt, lately a prisoner in Cork Gaol, while undergoing a sentence of hard labour in Cork Gaol, wore the prison clothes; and, if not, what were the grounds of exemption, and if all hard labour prisoners now in Ireland are exempted from wearing prison dress; has Mr. John Kelly, in Clonmel Gaol, been obliged to wear prison dress; and how many prisoners in Ireland, confined under the Criminal Law and Procedure (Ireland) Act, are at present obliged to wear prison clothes?
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURThe General Prisons Board report that both the prisoners named availed themselves of the privilege of wearing their own clothes. Rule 28, which confers this privilege, applies to both hard labour and non-hard labour prisoners. The Board cannot afford a reply to the point in the last paragraph without making 1137 inquiries, but they state that on the 31 at of March last there were only two prisoners in custody in the whole of Ireland who availed themselves of the privilege of wearing their own clothes.