§ SIR. E. REED (Cardiff)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware that, with regard to the sentence passed at the Assizes held at Swansea in August last on William Evans, one of the Glamorganshire Constabulary, who was convicted of feloniously wounding Sergeant Martin, and sentenced to 15 years' penal servitude by Lord Chief Justice Coleridge, Memorials signed by a large number of persons of all classes have been presented from Cowbridge, the Vale of Glamorgan, Cardiff, and Pembrokeshire, of which county William Evans is a native, as well as from the Joint Police Committee of the County of Glamorgan, in favour of a mitigation of the sentence; and whether another Memorial to the same effect has been recently presented, which has been signed by 10 of the jurymen who tried him, one of the jurymen who did not sign it having left the country, whilst 1176 the other cannot be found; if so, whether, considering this widespread and deep feeling in Glamorganshire and Pembrokeshire regarding the punishment inflicted on William Evans, he will recommend Her Majesty to reduce the sentence?
§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. MATTHEWS,) Birmingham, E.I have received Memorials relating to the case of William Evans in favour of a mitigation of the sentence passed on him. The prisoner was convicted of a savage and brutal crime, namely, gouging out the eye of a man, against whom he had reason to entertain a grudge. For this offence a sentence of penal servitude was certainly not improper, and it is too soon to consider whether any, and, if so, what, abridgment of the term may hereafter be allowable.