§ MR. J. P. FARRELLI beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether any memorial has been recently received praying for the discharge from the Philipstown Reformatory of Joseph Carney, a boy of 16 years of age, who at a recent quarter sessions in Longford was sentenced by Judge Curran to five years' detention there for stabbing a companion in a quarrel; and whether, seeing that this lad has now been for more than one year in the reformatory, and that his father, who is a car owner, is in a delicate state of health, and unable to follow his trade of car driving, he will recommend that the boy may now be discharged with a view to assisting his parents?
§ MR. GERALD BALFOURNo memorial has been received since November 1894. Detention in a reformatory cannot be regarded merely in the light of a punishment, and I do not think any special circumstances exist in this case to make the boy's discharge desirable.