§ MR. M. DAVITTI beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War how many soldiers serving in Great Britain and Ireland have been sentenced to imprisonment by courts-martial and commanding officers during the year 1897; and how many of these military prisoners were punished by bread and water, by irons, and by flogging, respectively, during their sentences?
§ MR. BRODRICKThe Returns are not sufficiently advanced to separate the sentences passed at home from those abroad; but of the two together 3,858 were by courts-martial and 3,704 by commanding officers. The punishments of prisoners, at home only, were dietary punishments (not necessarily bread and water), 800; irons or handcuffs, 15; flogging, by cat or birch, 7.
§ MR. M. DAVITTI beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War in how many of Her Majesty's military prisons are cranks and treadmills still retained as instruments of punishment; whether all soldiers sentenced to terms of imprisonment are subjected to this 42 form of treatment; and whether such methods of correcting conduct in military prisoners are to be retained as part of the discipline of such prisons?
§ MR. BRODRICKThere are no treadmills in military prisons; cranks are in use during the first 14 days of a sentence to hard labour, as a form of penal labour in prisons where facilities do not exist for stone-breaking or other bodily labour. It is not proposed to discontinue the existing practice.