§ MR. CHIOZZA MONEYI beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he can now state what steps he has taken in the matter of the Dudley justices who recently sent little boys to prison for bathing with out bathing-drawers.
§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Glad stone,) Leeds, W.I have made further inquiry and I am informed that the justices issued the commitments in the hope of enforcing the fines, and not with any intention of actually sending the children to prison. It is much to be regretted, I think, that greater care was not taken to prevent the commitments, if it was right to issue them at all, from being executed; but having discharged the boys from prison, I have no power to interfere further in the matter. I do not think such an incident is likely to recur.