THE EARL OF BELMOREasked Her Majesty's Government, Whether their attention has been drawn to the circumstances attending an inquest held on the 14th instant on the body of a prisoner named Joseph Penrose, who died on the 12th instant in Richmond Bridewell of small-pox; and if they are prepared to take steps to obviate in future the risk attending inquests upon persons who may have died in prison in Ireland of infectious diseases? The matter was of some importance, though it might seem a small one. It appeared that a person named Joseph Penrose had been committed to the Richmond Bridewell, Dublin, for some offence—the character of which he did not know—and subsequently smallpox developed itself in the man, and he died. According to a clause in a recent statute inserted, he presumed, in the interest of what are called in Ireland " political prisoners," if a prisoner died in gaol, an inquest must be held upon the body; formerly, he believed, all that was necessary was that the Coroner should certify as to the cause of death. On this occasion a jury was empannelled, and they very naturally objected to view the body; the Coroner, however, told them they were compelled to do so by law. He entirely sympathized with the jury in their refusal; had 526 he formed one of the jury, he should himself have objected. The taking persons from outside the prison to sit as jurors on prisoners who had died of small-pox was dangerous not only to the jurors themselves, but to the community in which they lived. It appeared also that, besides being daily visited by the Governor of the gaol and the turnkeys, which was perhaps unavoidable, the prisoner had been attended in his illness by three other prisoners. He had been told, on very good authority, that only the other day, in the case of an inquest on a man who had died in prison in the North of Ireland, that the Coroner empannelled half-a-dozen of the prisoners in the gaol on the jury, and they improved the occasion by appending to their finding as to the cause of death a resolution condemning the Government dietary in Ireland as being unfit for prisoners, though it was exactly the same as that used in England. Considering the prevalency of small-pox in Dublin of late, he thought this was a matter not unworthy of notice, and one had excited interest in Dublin which, with some other towns in Ireland, was affected by this loathsome and dangerous disease.
THE DUKE OF RICHMOND AND GORDONsaid, that what his noble Friend had stated was correct. A change in the law on the subject of his noble Friend's Question was made by the Bill passed in 1877. During the passing of that Bill through the House of Commons great stress was laid on the necessity of having an inquest held on every person who died while a prisoner in any of the prisons. The result was that, by 40 & 41 Vict. c. 49, an inquest in such case was necessary. He was not aware of the circumstances of the particular case to which his noble Friend referred beyond that the man died of small-pox. He would make inquiry into it. He believed there was no doubt that the prisoner died of small-pox; but even in that state of circumstances, so long as that clause remained, the jury must view the body.
THE EARL OF BELMOREobserved, that the jury added a rider to their verdict to the effect that prisoners suspected of small-pox should be removed to a small-pox hospital.
THE DUKE OF RICHMOND AND GORDONsaid, the removal of a prisoner, 527 under such circumstances, would make the hospital a prison, and he could not be placed there without subjecting him to the same regulations as he would be in a prison; and if he died there, the law would still have to be carried out.