§ CAPTAIN M'CALMONTI beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that, in consequence of the recommendation by the Committee in 1883, that the offices of Crown and Sessional Crown Solicitor should not be amalgamated if the holder of the existing office be over 65 years of age, the offices in the County Antrim were no amalgamated on the death of the Crown Solicitor, the Sessional Crown Solicitor being over 70 years of age; and if he can state on what other occasions the rule has been departed from during the last 10 years?
*MR. J. MORLEYI am not aware that the Committee of 1883 recommended an age limit of 65 years, but I do know that it recommended one of 70. There is, however, no hard-and-fast rule. It does not appear front the official records that the question of the age of the Sessional Crown Solicitor referred to by the hon. and gallant Gentleman was at all inquired into, when a separate appointment was made by the Government, over his head, to the superior office. The following are some of the departures front the recommendation of the Committee: In 1887, upon the death of the theft Crown Solicitor for Waterford and Kilkenny, there was no amalgamation of offices in either county, but new and distinct appointments were made to 876 the Crown Solicitor ship for each county. The same course was followed upon the death, in the same year, of the Crown Solicitor for Clare and Kenny, and on the death of the Crown Solicitor for Louth and Monaghan in 1886. I have already explained that there has been no union of offices in the County of Antrim.