§ CAPTAIN BAGOT (Westmoreland,) KendalI beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to the death of a prisoner, John Nelson, which occurred in Carlisle Prison on Tuesday, 2nd instant; whether, previous to Nelson's decease, the prison surgeon had made a report upon his condition, advising his immediate release on account of the serious state of his health; and, will he explain on what grounds the Prison Commissioners refused to grant his release?
§ *THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir MATTHEW WHITE RIDLEY,) Lancashire, BlackpoolYes, Sir, I am aware of the death of this prisoner. A report was 167 received by me five days before it happened from the prison doctor, not, as the Question suggests, advising his immediate release, but stating that he was suffering from pernicious anæmia and might die soon. The prisoner was too ill to be removed to his home, which was thirty miles away; and as the workhouse infirmary was the only other place which could receive him, and death was in all probability inevitable, I came to the conclusion that it was better he should remain undisturbed in the prison infirmary should add that the prisoner had been received in prison only three weeks before under a long sentence for a serious offence and that the disease was in no way due to or aggravated by his confinement.