As a consequence of Mr. W. H. Smith's notice that
Lord Ashbourne's Act is to be renewed before the end of the present Session, there was a fierce and most discreditable attempt to strike off from the English Prisons vote a sum equal to Dr. Barr's salary as medical officer of Ifirkdale Prison, Liverpool. This attack on Dr. Barr is due to his having been. sent by the Government to Ireland, to report on the difference (if any) between the medical treatment of prisoners in England and Ireland, and to his having when in Ireland exposed the character of the conspiracy of which poor Dr. Ridley was the victim. Mr. Dillon led the attack, on • the ground that when Dr. Barr visited him in prison, Dr. Barr refused to give him his name, and to explain his authority for examining him, which Mr. Dillon seemed to think that it was Dr. Barr's duty as a gentleman to have done. Then Dr. Clark called Dr. Barr "a disgrace to his profession," and Mr. Labouchere said that "coercive Governments always had to use vile in- struments, and that Dr. Barr was the vilest instrument the present Government had used in Ireland;" and for all this violent language there is absolutely not a scintilla of evidence. Dr. Barr is universally respected in Liverpool; the medical statistics of his prison are more satisfactory than those of the other prison in Liverpool which is under the same conditions; and, in fact, Dr. Barr's reputation is absolutely unblemished. It is really a great hardship that gross libels of this kind on private men should be covered, as, of course, they are, by the privilege of Parliament.
Previous page
