§ MR. WEDGWOOD (Newcastle-under-Lyme)To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he can say how many persons in the United Kingdom were, in 1906 and 1907, convicted under Section 5, Subsection 1, of the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1885, in whose cases the girls were thirteen and fourteen years of age, respectively.
(Answered by Mr. Secretary Gladstone.) The number of convictions in 1906, under the subsection mentioned by the hon. Member, was seventy-four. I cannot say how many of them related to girls of thirteen and fourteen years of age, because the calendars in describing the offence usually follow the words of the Act and speak of the girls as being over thirteen and under sixteen years of age. The figures for 1907 are not yet available.