§ MR. LUPTONI beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he is aware that two labourers living at Wrangley, in Lincolnshire, named Harry Blythe and Charles Blythe, have been committed to prison for twenty-one days, for failing to obey the order of the guardians of the Boston Union, each to contribute 1s. a week to the guardians for the maintenance of their parent, and to obey the order of the magistrates to pay 2s. 6d. a week each for arrears; and whether, seeing that three out of the five magistrates of the North Holland Bench sitting at Boston, who made the order to commit, were Members of the Board of Guardians that prosecuted the case, he proposes, by legislation or otherwise, to prevent magistrates adjudicating in cases in which they are so interested.
§ MR. GLADSTONEI have made inquiry in the case and am informed that of the magistrates who issued the committal orders two were guardians. There appears to have been sufficient evidence that the defendants, neither of whom was married, were in a position to pay the monies due from them in respect of their mother's maintenance. The two guardians who adjudicated in the case appear not to have been more interested than any other ratepayers would be in recovering the debt due to the common fund of the Union; and the facts at present before me do not suggest the desirability of any new legislation on the subject.