§ MR. PICKERSGILL (Bethnal Green, S.W.)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the case of James Hobbs, who in March, 1893, was convicted at the Central Criminal Court, before Mr. Justice Hawkins, and sentenced to 12 years' 497 penal servitude for forgery, and five years' penal servitude for other offences, in connection with the Liberator Company frauds, the two sentences to run concurrently, whether he issued in 1896 an official communication to the effect that the sentence on Hobbs might be considered as one of eight years; if so, will he state upon what grounds he reduced the sentence passed in this case; and will he state upon what grounds he has now released Hobbs, and upon what conditions the release has been made?
§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Right Hon. Sir M. W. RIDLEY,) Lancashire, BlackpoolI came to the conclusion in January of last year, after carefully considering the facts of the case in the light of the additional information disclosed by the investigations subsequent to the trial, that Hobbs would be sufficiently punished if his sentence were treated as one of eight years. Subsequently to this decision a serious deterioration took place in the prisoner's health, his eyesight in particular being endangered; and after obtaining full medical reports I decided that the circumstances were such as to justify his release on licence on medical grounds. The obligation to report to the Police has been remitted.
§ MR. PICKERSGILLI beg also to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department under what authority Mrs. Carew, who was convicted of murder in Her Majesty's Consular Court in Japan, is now imprisoned in England?
§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENTThe prisoner removed from Japan to Hong Kong under the provisions of the Order in Council, which regulates consular jurisdiction in China and Japan; and from Hong Kong to England, under the power given by the Colonial Prisoners' Removal Act, 1884.