§ MR. T. W. NUSSEY (Pontefract)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department under the provisions of what statute and by what authority the sentence of whipping was imposed in courts of summary jurisdiction in 1896 in respect of offences other than indictable offences, as, for instance, for offences against the Elementary Education Act, offences against borough bye-laws, and offences against the Vagrant Act, as set forth in Part L, Criminal Statistics, Table XL, Section (B)?
§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENTThere is no statutory authority to inflict whipping for any of the offences mentioned. I find on inquiry that the cases under the Vagrancy Act are entered under the wrong head, the children referred to being really convicted of larceny; and that in the other cases the charges were dismissed on the parents consenting to the children being whipped. The errors in every case originated in the Police Returns, but I am sorry that they escaped notice in the scrutiny which these Returns undergo in the Home Office.