14S MINUTES OF EVIDENCE BEFORE SELECT COMMITTEE djl". magistrates, that in every instance, or most frequently, the provisions of the William Harty. law were carried into effect ? - I am not aware of any great number ot instances, it C was only as medical attendant that I was called on to visit those persons when sick, ( 14 May.) and then it was that I became cognizant of the circumstance, but I am aware of several cases in which the inspector and magistrates did interfere. In collecting the information which you have laid before the Committee, with regard to the grand jury cess, to whom did you apply in order to procure it?— I had a great number of the grand jury warrants, and I obtained access to the grand jury warrants of my own parish, and also to the grand jury books and other docu- mWhen did you obtain access to the grand jury books?— In the secretary's office, he being present. . . Did you apply to the treasurer for any information on the subject ?— I conceived that in his office all the warrants as far back as I could desire to search, ought to be, and I found on inquiring of him, that when he was appointed all the papers belonging to his predecessor were sealed up and lodged in an office of the court of Kings Bench. What was the period of his appointment?— I think in 1807 or 1808. You found no difficulty on application to those public officers, in obtaining from . them all the information they could give on the subject?— Certainly not, so far as they had the means of affording it. Do you conceive that the class of persons committed to prisons in Dublin are more liable to disease than those committed to prisons in London ?— Certainly. On what grounds do you form that opinion ?— First, their hospitals here had scarcely a single patient/ and I observed very generally in going through Newgate and the Giltspur- street compter that a great proportion of the prisoners are what I would call, a much better class of prisoners ; they are younger and more healthy, there are few of the old and infirm people there that are in Dublin, and they were accommodated in a way very different from what they are in Dublin gaol; in our Newgate they have cells, in the London prisons they have apartments larger or smaller, beds or bedding laid down at night and taken up in the morning, so that they occupy very often the same room in the day that they did at night; the pri- soners in Newgate in Dublin are lodged during the day in very good cells, they are turned out of those cells at a certain hour of the morning, and are crammed together in a wretched kitchen, without shoes and stockings, or exposed in the yards to every inclemency of the weather that can create disease, and we know that it is the cha- racter of Irishmen, not to regard the weather; in the London gaol they are on boards, and in the Dublin gaol on flags; poverty and want of employment, I con- sider the chief causes producing the great mass of criminal prisoners in Dublin, What is the state of the citv marshalsea?— It is, in one respect, utterly incom- petent to accommodate the persons committed, there being but one apartment for pauper debtors. That room is a good room so far, but is quite unequal to the accommodation of the numbers confined there ; so much so, that the magistrates, to my great annoyance, have often ordered the most respectable among the pauper debtors into the hospital apartment. The other rooms for the accommodation of debtors, are just as good as in the sheriff's prison; but the pauper room is utterly incompetent to contain the number confined there. With respect to the yards of the prison, they are much better than in Newgate, or in the sheriffs prison. Ad- ditional rooms for accommodating the pauper debtors could be built there without any inconvenience, leaving abundance of space for exercise. To accommodate the pauper debtors properly, a sum of 500/. or at most 1,000/. expended on the erec- tion ot additional rooms, would make it a good prison. Do you conceive, that the same objections would applv to improved systems of vestry, upon the plan of the select vestries in England; as apply to the present ves nes.-'— 1 he objections which I make to vestries and parochial government, are both general and particular. 1 think, as I stated yesterday, that, from the state of society in Ireland, from the number of persons in the middle class of life, who are t0 lnt? rfere in vestlies> livillg « P to, or beyond their means, S^ ould be unwll, lng to place the public money under their management. n0t conceive> that some interference, with regard to the constitution of aSSpVTJr?' CVen Wlth reSard to the Parish cess, which they at present Ireland anvTT . very great improvements would be necessary : if there was in Ireland any portion of that public spirit which would lead the respectable inhabitants to