Prize Accounts; but that money was not taken from the funds of Greenwich Hospital, but from a fund created by a charge on all Prize Monies for various contingencies, future claims, and other matters. MR. LIDDELL: But those funds belong to Greenwich Hospital?

LORD CLARENCE PAGET: No; they had nothing whatever to do with Greenwich Hospital. They were naval prize monies, bounties, and other monies, of which an annual account was laid before Parliament; and if the hon. Member will look to that paper, he will find amongst the items a sum of £300 paid to the Auditor of the Prize Accounts. That was the sum paid to Sir Richard Bromley. My hon. Friend also asks what are the intentions of the Admiralty in respect to the future. The question who should be the Auditor of the Prize Accounts, and likewise what salary he should receive, is now under the consideration of the Government.

RELATIONS WITH BRAZIL. QUESTION.

THE SCOTCH UNIVERSITIES-ARMY

COMMISSIONS.-QUESTION.

MR. DALGLISH said, he would beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War, Why, in the recently published Regulations for Commissions in the Army the Universities of Scotland have been omitted from the list of Universities whose Graduates holding the degree of B.A. or A.M. were enabled to get commissions without passing the usual examination?

THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON said, in reply, that if there had been an omission, it had been one rather on the part of the Scotch Universities than on that of the Horse Guards. No communication had been received from these Universities stating that they were desirous of the privilege to which the hon. Member referred. they wished to avail themselves of those regulations, and satisfied a Military Council that they possessed the necessary requirements, he believed there would be no difficulty in bringing them within the rule.

VOLUNTEERS BILL.-QUESTION.

If

MR. HUMBERSTON said, he wished to ask the noble Lord, If he proposes to proceed with the Volunteer Bill this even

THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON said, it was not his intention to ask the House to proceed in Committee with the Volunteer Bill till that day fortnight.

MODEL SCHOOLS IN IRELAND.

QUESTION.

MR. O'REILLY said, he rose to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland, When the Returns relative to Model Schools in Ireland, which have been ordered, will be laid upon the table of the House?

SIR ROBERT PEEL, in reply, said, the Returns would be ready next Thursday, and would be laid on the table immediately after the Whitsunt holidays.

THE CASE OF MR. JAMES.
QUESTION.

In reply to Mr. ROEBUCK,

MR. CHICHESTER FORTESCUE said, that the delay in producing these Papers was owing to the pressure of business in the Colonial Office and in the printer's office. They were now in the hands of the printer, and he hoped to be able to lay them before the House very shortly. The Government were in expectation of receiving some further information from Sierra Leone respecting the case, but had not yet received it.

THE NEW COURTS OF JUSTICE.
QUESTION.

MR. ARTHUR MILLS said, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether Her Majesty's Government have arrived at any decision as to the course to be adopted with reference to the building and concentration of

Courts of Justice, and the sites to be chosen for that purpose; and, if so, whether he will state what measures it has been determined to adopt?

SIR GEORGE GREY said, in reply,

time had been required for their preparation. They would, however, be laid on the table to-morrow.

QUESTION.

SIR MORTON PETO said, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, If he can inform the House why the Corporation of the City of London have not proceeded to construct the Dead Meat Market in Smithfield, for which an Act was obtained in the year

MAIL SERVICE BETWEEN DOVER AND CALAIS.-QUESTION.

SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE said, he wished to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty, Whether any personal or written communications have taken place between the Post Office and the Admiralty, or between any Officers of the Post Office and the First Lord of the Admiralty, with reference to the employment of Admiralty Vessels for the Mail Service between Dover and Calais, or Dover and Ostend?

LORD CLARENCE PAGET replied, that the only communication that had taken place on the subject within the last few weeks was a personal one. A gentleman from the Post Office had come to see his noble Friend the Duke of Somerset, and likewise himself, to ask whether, in the event of any difficulties, the Admiralty could give their assistance in carrying the mails between Dover and Calais and Dover and Ostend. The Duke of Somerset said it would be highly inconvenient to the public service that the Admiralty should be called upon to furnish any such assistance.

THE GLASGOW MURDER-CASE OF JESSIE MACLACHLAN.

QUESTION.

MR. BLACKBURN said, he would, in the absence of the hon. Member for Perthshire (Mr. Stirling), beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, When the Papers on the Maclachlan case, moved for as an unopposed Return on the 4th of May, will be laid upon the table?

SIR GEORGE GREY, in reply, said, that the Papers referred to by the hon. Member were very voluminous, including as they did the whole of the proceedings at the trial, and therefore a considerable

1860?

SIR GEORGE GREY, in reply, said, he had possessed no means of answering the question, or giving the hon. Baronet the information he required; but that afternoon he had received a letter from the City Solicitor, written in consequence of that gentleman having seen the hon. Baronet's notice; and if the hon. Baronet moved for the letter, he would produce it.

MR. ODO RUSSELL AND THE PAPAL GOVERNMENT.--QUESTION.

'LORD JOHN MANNERS said, he wished to put a Question to the noble Lord at the head of the Government. The noble Lord said that he would look through the despatches of Mr. Odo Russell and see whether there was anything in them which should be laid before the House for their information. He wished now to ask the noble Lord, Whether he is prepared to say whether those despatches can be produced or not?

VISCOUNT PALMERSTON: The statement made by my hon. Friend the Under Secretary of State was not founded upon a despatch, and there is no despatch that will bring out the point the noble Lord wishes to elicit. From time to time my noble Friend at the head of the Foreign Office lays before Parliament despatches which explain the course of various transactions, but in this case there is nothing at present that we are prepared to lay on the table.

LORD JOHN MANNERS: Then I understand that the statement made the other night by the Under Secretary is not founded upon any despatch at the Foreign Office from Mr. Odo Russell?

MR. LAYARD: I wish to explain. The noble Lord appears to labour under a misapprehension upon this subject. When a similar assertion was made the other evening, I refrained from saying anything,

PRISON MINISTERS BILL-[BILL 24.]

THIRD READING.

Order for Third Reading read.

though it was my conviction that I said nothing whatever about a despatch, or anything to produce an impression upon the mind of the hon. Member for the King's County (Mr. Hennessy) that there was such a despatch. I have since referred to every report of what I had said, and I find my impression confirmed, that I never said there was a despatch, or that what I had said was founded upon a despatch.

MR. HENNESSY: I wish to ask, then, if there was no despatch, whether there was any communication or letter on the subject? When, in the course of the debate, a statement is made by one of the Ministers contradicting what has been stated in a publication which has been laid on the table by one of the diplomatists of Her Majesty's service, it is to be sup; posed that the Minister makes the contra diction upon authority, and certainly we all, I believe, understood that the authority the hon. Gentleman alluded to was a despatch. MR. LAYARD: My hon. Friend, in his Question to me, said that there were three despatches, two of which had been placed on the table, and the third, which had not been produced, was referred to by me in my speech. As I have just stated, that was an entire misapprehension. What I said and repeat now is that there is a moral conviction on my mind and on Mr. Odo Russell's mind that the facts he had stated were true. I did not refer to any despatch, nor can I find that any of the reports of what I had stated will bear that construction.

LORD JOHN MANNERS: Perhaps I may be allowed to ntention what the hon: Gentleman did really say. The hon. Under Secretary said

"Mr. Odo Russell well knew upon what anthority he had made the statement, and he would now state solemnly to the House that Mr. Russell had justified his statement, and showed that what he said was true."

SIR GEORGE BOWYER: I wish the Under Secretary would inform the House what were the grounds of the moral conviction which he stated to be on his mind. Has the hon. Gentleman received any communication on the subject?

VISCOUNT PALMERSTON: I must be allowed to answer the Question of the hon. Baronet. Her Majesty's Government entirely decline to furnish him or any one else with any materials out of which a quarrel can be got up and perpetuated between Mr. Odo Russell and either the French or Papal authorities.

Motion made, and Question proposed, 46 That the Bill be now read the third

time."-(Sir George Grey.)

MR. BLACK said, that the Bill was a flagrant violation of the principles of religious liberty; and in allowing it to pro-. ceed thus far the House had made a false step, which he hoped they would at once retrace. The Roman Catholics were the only Dissenters for whose advantage the Bill was introduced, and the proposals to appoint Roman Catholic chaplains to gaols would be sure to lead to frequent angry discussion at the county meetings. It was not to be expected that sturdy Noncon formists who objected to pay church rates would willingly pay a rate which was to defray the salary of a Roman Catholic chaplain. Those who opposed church rates made a fatal blunder in supporting this Bill, and the sooner they retraced their steps the better. One effect of appointing Roman Catholic chaplains to gaols would be that they must be appointed to work? houses, for it would never be endured that chaplains were to be appointed to minister to the criminal, and not to the unfortunate and the sick and the aged." No class of Dissenters excepting Roman Catholics would ever have ministers of their denomination appointed as chaplains in gaols. His own notion of the proper plan was, that a chaplain should be appointed of the faith of the majority of the country namely, that in England the chaplains should be Episcopalian, in Scotland Presbyterian, in Ireland Roman Catholic, with permission for the visits of the priests and ministers of the minorities, and of those other religious and benevolent persons who devoted themselves to the welfare of the prisoners. Of all the persons who visited the prisons he believed none did more good than those benevolent sympathizing Christians who went into the cells and read with the prisoners, and gave them good counsel and instruction. The practical working of the present Bill would, of necessity, interfere with all this. If a second Mrs. Fry were to wish to visit the prisoners, the Roman Catholic priest might prohibit her visits. Believing that the Bill would be a violation of religious liberty, that it would lead to angry debates, that it would be injurious to the Protestant Dissenters in England and Scotland, and that it would

SIR GEORGE GREY said, the subject had been so much debated that he would detain the House for a few seconds only. The fact upon which the Bill was grounded had not been controverted-namely, that there were among the inmates of the gaols of England and Scotland several thousands of Roman Catholic prisoners, for whose religious instruction no provision had been made beyond the special request clause, the practical effect of the law being that those prisoners were altogether without religious instruction. The principle of the Bill had up to that stage been sanctioned by the House, and he trusted that they would confirm their decision by agreeing to the third reading.

MR. NEWDEGATE said, the right hon. Baronet had reminded the House that there were several thousand Roman Catholic prisoners in the gaols of this country. It was to be regretted, that in proportion to the numbers of each denomination, the largest number of prisoners should be prisoners professing the Roman Catholic religion. But had one instance yet been adduced in which a Roman Catholic prisoner desiring the attendance of his priest had remained without it? Not one solitary instance. And such had of late been the increase of Roman Catholic establishments in the country that it would be most astonishing if there had been one. The fact was, the Bill did not profess to supply an absolute deficiency, but it did profess to exclude the Roman Catholic prisoners from the teaching of any but the priests of the Romish Church; and he (Mr. Newdegate) said advisedly that it did that against the will of the prisoner. That he asserted with knowledge of the fact. The point taken by the hon. Member for Edinburgh was a very valuable one. There had been no provision hitherto made for payment of Roman Catholic priests out of the rates; and when this payment was supplied from the county rates, it would rouse a determined opposition. At present, there was opposition enough to church rates; and if the Bill passed, they would not long be without opposition to county rates. On the part of the visiting justices, he would only adduce this fact. There was not one petition from visiting justices in favour of

the measure; there were sixty-eight against it. Besides, seventy-two boards of guardians had petitioned against the Bill. They saw, as they could not fail to see, that if the fact would be used as a ground for the measure passed with respect to prisons, claiming similar legislation with respect to workhouses. It was announced by the Roman Catholic body in 1859 that they then expected the establishment of Roman Catholic chaplains for union workhouses and that step once obtained would lead to a further and larger demand. Surely that was unexceptionable testimony as to the character of the Bill. It was only a step in legislation; it was so regarded by the Roman Catholics; it was so avowed. The right hon. Baronet had stated that the Estimates of the year contained a proposal for payment of Roman Catholic visiting chaplains in convict prisons; and that the proposal was sanctioned for the first time. But how was it passed? The Estimate was taken the first night after the Easter recess. When the House met, it was very thin; and it was urged that the Estimates which stood first on the Orders ought not to be passed under the circumstances. Well, the Government postponed those Estimates, and substituted another clause, including the Estimate for visiting priests of convict prisons. The Vote thus passed the House totally without notice, and without a single Member of the House except the Government being acquainted with the cir cumstance. Had not such been the fact, the objection to the Vote would have been as strong as ever. But even that Vote was not so objectionable as the Bill. A Vote in the annual Estimates did not imply the establishment of an office, and yet he never knew, till the accident he alluded to occurred, that Vote to be passed uncontested. A short time since he drew the attention of the House to the fact that the right hon. Baronet had been obliged to dismiss one of these visiting priests. The right hon. Baronet refused the House the information asked on the subject. The House divided on the question late one evening, and so great was the strength of the Government that the Motion for information was rejected. But he (Mr. Newdegate) had heard more of the case since, and no Member of the Government would contradict him when he said that the clerical personage in question had urged, that in the exercise of his religious functions, he ought not to be subject to the authority of the civil Government. And this assertion was but analogous with