HC Deb 05 May 1824 vol 11 cc509-24
Sir T. Lethbridge

rose to present a petition from two very respectable magistrates, sir J. C. Hippisley, who dicharged the duties of a justice of the peace in the county of Somerset; and Mr. Briscoe, who was a justice of the peace for the county of Surry; against the punishment of the Tread-mill. As the petition was of great length, and embraced every topic connected with the subject, it would be impossible for him to put the House in possession of the whole of its contents, He hoped, therefore, the House would permit- it to be printed. It would then be placed in the hands of members, who, in common with the public at large, would duly appreciate the statements and reasonings which it contained. The petition was against the labour of the tread-wheel—a machine which was in pretty general use throughout this country, as a punishment for crimes. That punishment had been, in some instances, resorted to before the trial of prisoners; but he believed there was a clause in the bill now before the House, which would prevent it in future. He had taken some pains to read several pamphlets which had been written, on this subject by an hon. baronet. He had in his mode of handling it displayed his usual ability; and the facts and arguments adduced by the hon. baronet had, in some degree, staggered those opinions which he (sir T. L) formerly entertained with respect to this mode of punishment. He would press on the attention of the committee on Prison Discipline, who had not yet finished their labours, the propriety of taking into their most serious consideration the various allegations on this subject. Every man must concede to the petitioners, that such a mode of punishment was unknown to the constitutional jealousy of our forefathers. The common law was unacquainted with it. Besides, it tended to impart to the lower magistracy a power which even the judges did not possess.

Mr. Denison

said, the labour of the tread-wheel had been received with approbation in four or five-and-twenty different counties. If it were not unanimously approved of by the magistrates, certain he was, that a great proportion of them were favourable to it; and, so far as it had gone, he believed it was the best mode of punishment that could be adopted. It kept the prisoner to hard labour, as the law authorised and directed, without breaking his spirit, or injuring his health. One of the petitioners, Mr. Briscoe, had certainly come before the magistrates at the last quarter sessions for Surry, and laid before them certain charges, which, in his opinion, and that of the bench, he could not substantiate. There were no gaols in the kingdom where greater attention was paid to the prisoners, collectively and individually, than in those of Surry. The surgeon examined the prisoners twice a week; and he had the discretionary power, if the health of a prisoner were declining, to exempt him from work altogether. He was likewise authorised to order such provisions as the state of a prisoner's health might require. He was confident that when the subject should be inquired into, it would be found that no reasonable argument could be urged against this punishment, and that no gaols were better regulated than those in which it was used. On one point, however, his opinion differed from that of other magistrates. He did not think that women should be employed at the wheel.

Mr. Hobhouse

said, the great object of the House should be, to prevent an abuse of the discretionary power which the existing act placed in the hand of magistrates. Now, they must be all aware that that power had been very much abused in one or two instances. He would not enter into the merits of the case alluded to by his hon. friend, but he could not help thinking, that magistrates, when intrusted with so arbitrary a power, ought to keep a very strict guard over their conduct. It was always an object in punishment to avoid degrading the culprit in his own eyes and those of others as far as possible; but certainly, no man could ever look upon himself as a man was entitled to do, after being made to run round like a dog in a wheel, for the amusement of those who might choose to stand and gaze at him. The tread-wheel might be a very fit and proper punishment to be inflicted for some offences, which now subjected those who committed them to transportation or to death; but, as applied at present, it seemed to him, to be in the last degree mischievous, cruel, and absurd.

The petition was then read, as follows:—

"The humble Petition of sir John Cox Hippisley, baronet, an acting magistrate in and for the county of Somerset, and of other counties, in which the subject of prison discipline has undergone much inquiry and practical investigation by the resident local magistracy; also of John I. Briscoe Esq., an acting magistrate of the county of Surry,

"Sheweth, That a considerable degree of expectation has been excited in the public mind, and which the petitioners, in their official characters, cannot but regard with the deepest interest, in reference to the progress of a bill now in your honourable House, having for its object an amendment of the general gaol act of the 4th of his present majesty, chap. 64.

"That the petitioners, in common with many other individuals with whom they have had communication, entertain a serious apprehension that the introduction, for the first time by name, of a novel method and machine of punishment into our Statute-book, may be construed into an implied recognition of tread-wheel labour, as a legalized employment for all prisoners who are not the subjects of particular exemption. And this apprehension is still more strongly awakened, by a practical adoption of the tread wheel in many of the gaols and prisons of the kingdom, as appears in the official communications addressed to the home department of his majesty's government:

"That the petitioners humbly entreat the attention and consideration of your honourable House to the extraordinary and important circumstances, that the punishment of the tread-wheel is altogether unknown to the common law of the land, and is neither named nor in any way designated in the Statute-book—the only authorities throughout the realm that can justify the use of any specific punishment or penal infliction; and that hence it never has, and, till some change take place in the law, never can form a specific part of any sentence passed by the judges at any assize upon a criminal; yet that this severe, and as they are ready to substantiate, painful and dangerous penalty, has been for several years past very generally inflicted on almost every class and description of offenders by local justices of the peace, who, in numerous instances, have sat in debate on the propriety or impropriety of employing this new punishment; in some instances have decided in favour of it, and in others against it; thus assuming to themselves a power equally unprecedented and alarming, and one which places magistrates on a supposed level with parliament, in which alone is vested the constitutional right of deciding and establishing the law of the realm, and elevates them above the judges of the land, whose inferiors in office, agreeably to the principles and provisions of the constitution, they have always been esteemed.

"That the petitioners, as magistrates and members of society, regard it further to be their bounden duty, in the present crisis, to lay before your honourable House some of the practical and weighty grounds of objection which exist against this novel punishment, introduced by many of his majesty's justices of the peace, and which, in the opinion of the petitioners, seem to call for an immediate interference of the legislature. In the first place, they cannot but submit to your honourable House, that the tread-wheel, as a mechanical engine, is an unsafe, and even on this account, an unconstitutional mode of punishment; from the complication of its construction, the frequent irregularity of its revolutions, the extent and formation of its shafts, especially as applied in the most considerable prisons in the kingdom, and the enormous weight which it often has to sustain, in consequence of which it has actually broken, and that repeatedly in short periods of time, in various houses of correction: in some instances (where precaution is assigned to have been expressly taken) without accident, as stated by a visiting magistrate of Shepton-Mallet, in the last official returns to the office of the home department; in others, occasioning severe sprains and bruises to those prisoners who had been thereby thrown off the wheels, and precipitated to a depth of some feet, as at Coldbath-fields, which fact, though not appearing upon the face of the returns, the petitioners are prepared to verify. In one instance, the machinery has been the cause of a fractured limb, and in others of immediate loss of life, to such of the workers as have not been aware of its dangers, or not sufficiently on their guard against them. The former instance occurred at North Allerton, in the case of an untried prisoner, whose arm was shattered so as to render amputation necessary; and the latter cases at Leicester, where two men were killed while engaged at the wheel, and at Swaffham, where another prisoner was instantaneously crushed to death. And the petitioners beg also to observe, that from the evidence of engineers of the highest reputation, there appears to be no possible mode of obtaining an adequate security against many of these casualties, from the insuperable frangibility of the iron, whether cast or malleable, that enters so largely into the construction of the tread-wheels, whence such calamities must be regarded as inherent in the discipline, and consequently as likely to recur as long as it continues to be enforced.

"The petitioners submit next, that this instrument of punishment is further objectionable from its injurious effects on the health of those who are sentenced to it. They are able to prove on oath before your honourable House, from a large mass of evidence from medical practitioners of name and reputation, from prison attendants, and very extensively from those who have suffered as prisoners from its infliction, but who are now at liberty, that it can rarely be employed at the usual rate of exertion for more than ten minutes or a quarter of an hour without causing some or all of the attendant symptoms of a prejudicial excitement and dangerous exhaustion of the animal powers, and particularly so violent and morbid an acceleration of the pulse, as to quicken its beat to nearly double its natural range, raising it from the ordinary rate of from sixty to seventy strokes in a minute, to an average of one hundred and twenty-three in the male, and one hundred and forty-four in the female prisoners, as has been proved by different medical practitioners of high respectability, and is confirmed by a minute entered on the prison journal at Brixton, by those represented to be magistrates favourable to this species of labour, and who therein refer to an experiment made on their own persons; that, together with so baneful an excitement it causes pains and aches in different parts and organs of the body, according to the peculiarity of different constitutions, or the circumstances under which the labour is inflicted; that women, who, from the comparative weakness of their sex, suffer with additional severity, have in many instances dropped off from the wheel in a swoon, have had their natural indispositions profusely and painfully aggravated, sometimes forced prematurely, and at others suddenly and totally obstructed; that when in a state of pregnancy, which, in its earliest and most dangerous stages, is not unfrequently undetected, they are in imminent danger of abortion, of which an instance occurs in the official report from the prison in Coldbath-fields; and that, as nurses, they cannot, without manifest injury and suffering to their infants, as well as to themselves, perform the office of suckling on descending from the tread-wheel, though they are generally called upon to do so by the cries of their children, exposed in the wheel-galleries to the cold, and confided, while their mothers are performing their turn upon it, to the care of strangers; on all which accounts female prisoners have in many houses of correction been humanely allowed a general exemption from the tread-wheel.

"The petitioners beg leave also to submit, that a familiarity with this labour, instead of rendering it lighter and less mischievous, augments its injurious consequences to the health and strength in almost every instance, as well in men as in women: such effects increasing with the increasing debility of the frame. That the petitioners are aware that a different account of this penal infliction has been given in most of the official communications addressed by order to the home department of his majesty's government but they humbly beg leave to represent that they are unable to place the confidence they could wish in these communications, not only from the wide discrepancy of their own experience, but from the partial and irregular nature of the reports themselves, which contain no ac-count of the average proportion of labour, of the intervals of its cessation, of the rate of revolution of the wheels, of their dimensions or space between the treadles or steps, though all these circumstances materially influence the nature and effect of the task-work; and which are likewise returned from several places, as Pembroke and Haverford west, with the signature of a single magistrate, without any statement on the part of a surgeon, or notice of consultation with him on the subject, although such consultation is expressly directed in the official letter addressed by the secretary of "state to the visiting magistrates of the several gaols and houses of correction; while only twenty-one returns are printed, as laid before your honourable House: though it is capable of proof, that at least in fifty-three prisons, there are tread-wheels erected, or actually in operation, at the period of official inquiry.

"That the inability of the petitioners to confide in the above reports is not a little augmented by the utter and irreconcileable conflict which exists between their several statements, some of them admitting, by implication, the labour to be of so severe a nature, that the infliction for women has either never been allowed, or has actually been abandoned, or reduced, both in time and degree, to so short a period, as to leave the greatest part of the day unemployed; while it is elsewhere described, even when maintained at its highest scale, as of so harmless and pleasant a nature, that untried prisoners have expressed a desire to go upon the work, have volunteered to do so, or would be glad to be so employed if allowed. In addition to which, it is contended, that there is nothing in the employment repugnant to common delicacy. All which assertions, your petitioners beg leave to observe, are incompatible with that necessity of a greatly increased diet of meat and beer, which, though accompanied with an enormous augmentation of expense, is now found indispensable in every establishment where the tread-wheel is in use, in consequence of the exhausting nature of the labour as before stated.

"The petitioners beg further to submit, that the only medical committee (as they understand) which has hitherto been consulted by the home department of his majesty's government, has been limited in its inquiry to the effects of working female prisoners on the wheel; and that the report of such committee, in the opinion of the petitioners, recommends what is equivalent to a virtual renunciation of the punishment, by restricting its application, even for the young and robust, to two hours and a half of actual labour daily, and allowing intervals of entire rest to all for a whole week, once in every month, (exemptions unknown to, and unnecessary for healthy females in any of the usual species of hard labour performed by their sex, and which indisputably decide in the affirmative the question proposed by Mr. Secretary Peel to the committee—namely, whether the effects on the female constitution are greater than result from the ordinary occupations of women in the lower classes of society); while the same committee still further recommend a total prohibition of the wheel to the very great numbers who are in any respect infirm or diseased.

"The petitioners humbly represent, that the indiscriminate employment of an ignominious and corporal punishment, degrading to the mind and hurtful to the body of the prisoner, which destroys all due classification, and implies the same kind and measure of infliction to every degree of crime, and difference of age, sex, and habit of life, appears to them equally [hostile to justice, humanity, and sound policy; and that, to subject to the tread-wheel correction, as is done at present, the felon, the misdemeanant, and the vagrant—the robust and the weak—men afflicted with ruptures, and women with infants at their breast, is contrary to every principle of discriminate subdivision and moral improvement, which the genera) provisions of the statute now before your honourable House for the purpose of amendment are principally designed to promote. That soldiers who have hazarded their lives in defence of their country, and whose feelings of honour, and sense of shame it seems peculiarly important to cherish, form another description of prisoners frequently consigned to the tread-wheel, in pursuance of the orders of courts-martial; and that in the house of correction at Brixton, some of this class of individuals have been actually fastened to the wheel by chains attached to the arm, and suspended from the face-board above the wheel, being from such an extraordinary exercise of severity exposed to the casualties resulting from a false step, or a sudden paroxysm of disease, or exhaustion, by which their limbs, and even their lives, are put in imminent peril, while they are deprived of every possibility of extricating themselves.

"That the petitioners, after extensive and cautious investigation, have reason to fear that the great and important hope at first indulged, that the discipline of the tread-wheel would materially diminish the aggregate of offenders, has completely failed; and that while it is fully ascertained that it promotes no habit of industry or means of earning a livelihood when discharged from gaol, they believe it both hardens the heart and demoralizes the mind, at the same time that it injures and enfeebles the body; and thus, by lessening the means and opportunities of amendment, by preparing the prisoner for crimes of greater magnitude, and rendering him indifferent as to the future, has a natural tendency to fill rather than empty our prisons, and to render them schools of growing crime and desperation, rather than of reformation and moral discipline. And in proof of this, the petitioners refer to the greater number of recommitments, that seem almost uniformly to take place where the tread-wheel is established, compared with those in houses of correction where it is not yet introduced, so as to give fearful and abundant evidence of the resistance opposed in the former to the influence of that moral and religious instruction which is so wisely and wholesomely attempted to be introduced into the economy of our prison establishments.

"The petitioners beg leave to submit, on the other hand, that Mr. Howard, whose considerations and recommendations of the subject of prison discipline were formerly matter of parliamentary discussion and approbation, has enumerated no less than fifty-eight modes of prison employment, which are capable of being rendered subservient to the health and morals of a prison population, of engendering habits of industry, and consequently of promoting the means by which prisoners may be enabled to provide for themselves when liberated, and thus of carrying into effect the important and salutary remarks advanced by Mr. Justice Bayley in his late impressive charge to the grand jury at the Durham Assizes, in which he says—'he had always thought that the employment of prisoners ought to be as far as possible so regulated, that they could, afterwards obtain a livelihood by it.' Whilst at the same time it should be observed, that most of the methods of employment alluded to by Mr. Howard, may be rendered contributary to the severest degree of hard labour, in the proper and legitimate acceptation of the term, and will be found sufficiently to weary the workers without wasting their constitutional strength, as has been amply established in various houses of correction, which have had recourse to them long prior to the use of the tread-wheel, and particularly (as stated in the reports of the Prison Discipline Society) in those of Preston, Knutsford, and Maidstone, while the committee of this society has, with great truth and candour, remarked, in their publication 'On the Government of Gaols,' that 'preference should be given to those trades which require hard labour, the knowledge of which may enable the prisoners to earn their subsistence on their discharge from prison'—an observation which is followed by an enumeration of corresponding employments little short of that by Mr. Howard.

"And here the petitioners hope they may be permitted to remind your honourable House, that both the spirit and letter of the laws of our country have, from the earliest times, provided that no infliction of punishment ought to endanger the health of the body, or expose it to casualties, beyond the strict intent and bear- ing of a prisoner's sentence, insomuch, that in the statute of the 51st of Henry III., intituled 'Judicum Pillorie,' it is expressly enacted, that the penalty should be fulfilled, 'without bodily peril of man or woman'; while another statute of a date not long subsequent, provides that the pillory should be of convenient strength, so that execution may be done upon the offenders without peril of their bodies'

"While the petitioners thus presume to avow their own humble opinions and conscientious fears, with reference to the adoption of the novel discipline herein objected to, they cannot observe without deep regret, the strenuous efforts which are making to extend its introduction into almost every considerable state of Europe. Whatever, indeed, is connected with the good of civil society, ought not to be confined within the boundaries of a single nation; but before experiments upon this important subject are lavishly recommended to the world, it seems most reasonable, that incontrovertible proof should be furnished, that the benefit of the community is thereby likely to be promoted. It does not, however, appear that the tread-wheel, with all the fostering support it has derived from the well-intentioned society that first brought it into notice, instituted in our metropolis and its vicinity under the auspices of many of the most distinguished characters in the kingdom, has been hailed with an equal approbation by various illustrious foreigners engaged in the same laudable pursuit, and availing themselves of every means of inquiry afforded by the institutions of our own country. The petitioners, in proof hereof, may be permitted to advert to the interesting report on the state of prisons in France, by M. le Marquis dc Barbé Marbois, as the organ of a similar society, constituted by an ordonnance of the king of France, of the 9th of April, 1819, and composed of twenty-four members, under the presidency of the Minister of the Interior, the majority of which are peers of France, while the rest are appropriately distinguished by their official stations in the government. Speaking in this report of the application of the tread-wheel, after a minute examination of this machine, by a deputation from the society in France, directly charged to observe its effects in England, and to obtain all practical information from our own Prison discipline Society, the noble marquis thus expresses himself—'The introduction of a new kind of torture in France appears to me an evil of greater magnitude than even indiscipline itself, which demands other remedies. The tread-wheel is a real torment. This is evident from the description given of it; from the acknowledged falls and fractures caused by this machine; and, lastly, from the dread with which it inspires the prisoners. If physicians have been found capable of asserting that this horrible exercise strengthens and preserves health, they have indulged in a cruel mockery.' The distinguished writer of these remarks, who is a minister of state and first president of the 'Cour des Comptes,' also dwells with particular emphasis on the mischief of such punishments as stamp lasting disgrace; and he shows that a very large proportion of crimes is committed by convicts returned from the galleys. 'The degraded man,' observes the noble marquis, 'thinks he has the right to become the enemy of society, because it disowns him.' The appearance of such a report at such a crisis as the present, may be considered as offering in itself an excuse for introducing it before your honourable House; and to none is the value of this royal establishment in France better known or more energetically acknowledged than by our own corresponding institution, expressly organized as it is for the promotion of similar objects, and which in successive reports of its own has placed at the head of its foreign correspondence the proceedings of this very society, with a detailed account of its institution, and various references to the reports it has presented to the Due de Rochefoucault, together with an antecedent report of the Marquis de Barbé Marbois.

"From the circumstances already adverted to by the petitioners, and none are mentioned but what they consider they have the most satisfactory means of proving at the bar, or in the committees of your honourable House, together with other weighty reasons which press upon their minds, they are themselves convinced of the inefficiency of any discipline founded on a principle of unmixed terror and degradation. They also feel great anxiety in respect to the interpretation of the clause respecting untried prisoners introduced in the bill now before your honourable House, as indirectly sanctioning a mode of punishment, against which, as magistrates and as Englishmen, they humbly protest, from its inherent evils, mechanical, medical, and moral; and the more so, as the same instrument of terror has, for some time past, been introduced into a considerable workhouse in the country, containing an incorporated aggregation of eighteen parishes; and unless restrained by the interposition of parliament, may be adopted in all such establishments, under the denomination of hard labour.

"And your petitioner, sir John Cox Hippisley, begs leave to observe for himself, that he has individually under-taken, from the obvious exigency of the occasion, and stands also individually engaged to the county in which is his principal residence, for the completion, by prison labour exclusively, of one of the most considerable Houses of correction in the kingdom, situated in the vicinity of considerable manufacturing towns and villages, which are but too often in a state of great insubordination—and of a considerable colliery district, which has more than once called for exertions beyond the ordinary means of the civil magistrate: and consequently, that, should the principle at present so much encouraged and promoted by the majority of the magistracy charged with a visitation of prisons, find any countenance by a concurrent enactment of the legislature, every effort to persevere in the completion of the provincial house of correction at Shepton Mallet, by prison labour, must unfortunately be abandoned: concerning which prison, however, so far as it has advanced, the Society of Prison Discipline has been pleased to affirm, 'That it has afforded many instances of the reformation of individuals—that great benefits have arisen from the instruction there supplied, particularly in respect of juvenile prisoners—that a classification has long been adopted there to manifest advantage, and that many persons have been taught to work as masons, carpenters, tailors, and shoemakers, who are now maintaining themselves by the trades they have so learned.' To this testimony, and which is no other than the fact, the petitioner, who has long been occupied in the superintendence of the said prison, and is yet responsible for the execution of the works undertaken for its extension and completion in the terms of his contract, can add, from long experience, that an adoption of similar measures would be found to save, in the public disbursements of counties, an amount of expense, which, if particularly cited, could hardly be credited; exclusive of all the advantages hereby derivable to the health and habits of prisoners.

"To render such efforts still more advantageous, and trusting that in the wisdom of parliament, such resources will not be abandoned, the petitioner ventures also to suggest, the great advantages derivable from a re-enactment of the act, chap. 56, of the 24th year of his late Majesty, the practical operation of which has expired, and by which one justice of assize, or two or more justices of the county, might remove any prisoners under sentences, and orders made by one or more justice or justices of the peace at their sessions, or otherwise, upon conviction in a summary way, without the intervention of a jury. If such a power were revived, and extended to convictions, when capital punishments did not attach, it is humbly conceived that great public benefit might result, by the visiting magistrates of prisons being empowered to concert with each other for the arrangement of removals for any of the purposes of the act, passed in the last session for the consolidating and amendment of the several laws relating to gaols and houses of correction.

"The petitioner also having presumed early to solicit the attention of some members of the committee of your honourable House to the restrictive clause, respecting the tread-mill, as it originally stood, ventures further to submit, that some practical inconvenience may eventually arise, should the enactment take place, even as it now stands, on the amendments ordered to be printed on the 15th of April; as, from a cursory reference to the bill, the title will still be found not to correspond with the enactment, nor to have any application whatever to the state of the largest house of correction in this kingdom, namely, that of Cold-bath-fields, where there are no tread-mills, as well as to many other considerable prisons.

"Under these circumstances, the petitioners beg leave to close this intrusion upon the patience of your honourable House, with humbly praying that for the reasons already stated, namely, the utter inutility of the work, as exercised in some places, the pain, the peril, and inequality of the punishment, its impropriety, inde- cency, and cruelty, in various circumstances and situations, its inefficiency in all, to answer the intent and purposes of correction and reformation, while it debilitates the body, and demoralizes the mind, without inculcating any habit of useful industry, together with its impolicy and illegality, as at present administered—that from the comparatively short period of its approbation as a mode of discipline, the irregular, partial, and discordant communications officially made upon its nature and effects—the particular exceptions and limitations carefully recommended by the medical committee, appointed to examine into its action on one class of the inmates of a single house of correction—and the increase of committals and re-committals in most establishments where it is in use, the tread-wheel may not be sanctioned, adopted, or in any way designated or included in our Statute-book as an instrument of punishment, or means of hard labour or employment of prisoners, without further investigation by your honourable House, and that magistrates be restricted from enforcing its use till such investigation shall be made, and such sanction and adoption on the part of the legislature obtained.

"And the petitioners further pray, that the bill, as at present before your honourable House, may not pass into a law, and that such other relief may be granted in the said matter as to your wisdom shall seem expedient.

"The petitioner, sir J. C. Hippisley, begs leave further to observe, that while the preceding observations were drawing up, an incident occurred which seems to render the present application to your honourable House a duty of the most imperative necessity; and the more especially, as it is now occupied with a revision of the existing Gaol act. Under the 17th section of this act, it is provided, 'that any Justice of the peace, of any county, or other division, whether a visitor or not, shall, at his own free will and pleasure, and as often as he shall see fit, enter into and examine any prison of such county or other division; and the act requires of him, if he shall discover any abuse or abuses therein, that he shall report the same in writing, at the next General or Quarter Sessions; and that the abuse or abuses so reported, shall be taken into immediate consideration, and the most effectual means adopted for inquiring into and certifying the same.' In which enactment it is obvious, from the report being required to be set forth in writing, without any demand of a personal attendance, that parliament designed to provide for a speedy and effectual redress of any known abuses, even in cases in which the magistrate acquainted with them should not be able to be present personally at such sessions, from indisposition, or attendance in parliament, or any other cause.

"Under the authority of this provision, the petitioner, sir J. C. Hippisley, being at the time suffering under much indisposition, reported in writing, to the magistrates assembled in the late General Quarter Sessions of the peace for the county of Surrey, of which county he is an acting magistrate, the existence of certain abuses in houses of correction under their jurisdiction, which, in his judgment, demanded such a report to be made. His report was delivered in due time to the clerk of the peace; and from him he has received a letter, dated the 1st of the present month, informing him as follows:—'I laid your statement, or report, on the subject of the tread-wheel, before the court on the first day of the session, and was proceeding to read it, but the court declined hearing it, on the ground that it was contrary to the practice of the court to receive written statements from magistrates who did not attend themselves. I have therefore returned your paper. (Signed) C. J. LAWSON. So that while by the penalty of the tread-wheel the magistrates are introducing into our prisons, and even our poor-houses, a punishment unsanctioned by either common or statute law, by the practice of the above court of sessions they are directly contravening a distinct parliamentary enactment. It will hence, perhaps be felt necessary by your honourable House, that some measure should be adopted to ensure compliance with the enactment of so important a part of the statute, especially at a moment when the consideration of the House is drawn to a revisal of some parts of the act in question."

Ordered to lie on the table.