§ MR. SPEAKER informed the House that he had received from one of the Judges of the High Court of Justice the following letter relating to the Election of the City of Worcester—
City of Worcester and County of the same City.
At the Assizes and General Session of the Delivery of the Gaol of our Lord the King, holden at Worcester in and for the County of the City of Worcester, on Wednesday the sixth day of February, in the seventh year of the reign of our Sovereign Lord Edward the Seventh, by the Grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and of the British Dominions beyond the Seas King, Defender of the Faith, and in the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and seven, before the hon. Sir John Charles Bigham, Knight, one of the Justices of the High Court of Justice, and other Justices of our said Lord the King, assigned to deliver his Gaol of the said County of the City of Worcester of the Prisoners therein being.
Whereas our said Lord the King by a certain Commission dated the seventh day of July, one thousand nine hundred and six, in the sixth year of the reign of our said Lord the King, under the hand of one of His Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State, authorised and appointed Edward Tindal Atkinson, Esquire, one of the Counsel of our said Lord the King learned in the Law, Attorney-General of the County Palatine of Durham, Recorder of the City of Leeds, Horace Edmund Avory, Esquire, one other of the Counsel of our said Lord the King learned in the Law, Recorder of the Borough of Kingston-upon-Thames, and Charles Willie Mathews, Esquire, Barrister-at-Law, Recorder of the City of Salisbury, to be Commissioners for the purpose of making inquiry into the existence of corrupt practices at the last Parliamentary Elec-
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tion for the City of Worcester. And whereas the said Commissioners have by their Report, dated the twenty-second day of November, one thousand nine hundred and six, reported to our said Lord the King that one Walter Caldicott was guilty of Bribery and of an Illegal Practice at the said Parliamentary Election for the said City of Worcester. And whereas the said Walter Caldicott hath, pursuant to sub-section 2 of Section 38 of the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Act, 1883, appealed to this Court against the said Report. Now this Court, having read the said Report and such parts of the evidence given before the said Commissioners as relate to the said Walter Caldicott, and having heard the Honourable Reginald William Coventry, of Counsel for the Appellant, and James Cranstoun, Esquire, of Counsel for the Director of Public Prosecutions, and having heard the evidence of Samuel Adams, Frank Jenkins, and Charles Frederick Thornborrow, and of the said Walter Caldicott, This Court doth order that that part of the Report of the said Commissioners by which they report the said Walter Caldicott as a person guilty of Bribery be set aside.
By the Court,
Archer C. Hemp,
Deputy Clerk of Assize.
March 12th, 1907.