§ 19. Sir WILLIAM BYLESasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether a prisoner in Wakefield gaol committed suicide on Thursday last to avoid a flogging ordered by the governor for violent conduct; and whether the Home Office is unable to devise some less degrading method of dealing with passionate and refractory prisoners?
§ Mr. McKENNAThe flogging was ordered not by the governor but by the Visiting Committee, under Section 5 of the Prison Act, 1898, for two very violent assaults upon warders. The method of dealing with passionate and refractory prisoners is not free from difficulty, but as now advised I see no reason for reconsidering the law.