§ MR. ASCROFTI beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he can give the number of cases during the last ten years where prisoners convicted of robbery with violence and garrotting have been flogged; whether he can give the number of convictions obtained during the same period of prisoners charged with attempts to wreck railway trains; and, whether he can give any information as to the increase of the latter offence during recent years.
§ * SIR M.WHITE RIDLEYThe numbers of cases in which prisoners have been sentenced to be flogged in each of the ten years 1888 to 1897, are 26, 24, 9, 17, 18, 46, 65, 30, 29, and 31. During the same years the numbers of persons convicted on indictment under Sections 32, 33, and 34 of the Offences against the Person Act, 1861, are 18, 4, 11, 4, 6, 3, 11, 10, 14, and 0. The figures for 1898 are not 352 available; but those which I have given show that while there are great variations from year to year in the number of convictions, it cannot be said that there is an increase in recent years.