SEDUCTION. (Hansard, 10 June 1840)

Mr. Miles
, in moving the Order of the Day for the second reading of the Seduction Bill, after adverting to the proceedings of the select committee, proceeded to enlarge upon the facilities to seduction, provided by the existing system, and the absolute necessity of supplying a remedy. The question, therefore, was simply this, was nothing to be done for these victims of profligate lust? Were they to see the sisters, wives, and daughters, of their poorer countrymen reduced to a melancholy state of misery and distress, without attempting to do anything to relieve it? Or were they to suffer the unprincipled views of the seducer to continue successful, and from the difficulty of carrying the present law into execution, and from the fear of reverting to all the evils of the old system, to be deterred from all further efforts of legislation upon this subject? Had there been, he would ask, no increase of bastardy since the passing of the New Poor-law? It was recorded by the New Poor-law Commissioners in their first annual report, that the illegitimate births were to the legitimate in 1830, as one to nineteen. He had an account in his hand of the legitimate and illegitimate births in the three years previous to the 31st of December, 1834, and in the three years subsequent to it. That account comprised the returns from ten counties in the south of England, and from the ten counties which were first divided into unions. In those counties had bastardy increased or diminished? It appeared, that in the three years immediately preceding that in which the Poor-law Amendment Act was passed, there were 8,579 illegitimate births, and in the last three years 9,048. These returns were from 3,835 parishes. It was true, that they were nearly all rural parishes; but had the result been different in the the great manufacturing districts? He had the authority of one of the most able and intelligent of the assistant Poor-law commissioners for stating, that in the West Riding of Yorkshire and in Lancashire bastardy had greatly increased since the passing of the New Poor-law. He had also another return, which, though partial, he thought necessary to bring 968 under the notice of the House—it was a return from the Wincanton district. He had inquired whether there had been any peculiar mortality in that district, and had been informed that there had not. Now, he found that in the Wincanton division for half a year there had been 500 births. In this number there were fifty-nine bastards. Of infants which had died under two years of age there were seventy-nine; of this number twenty-five were bastards. A return like that ought to induce the House to pause, if not to desist altogether from its present course. He had been in hopes of obtaining a similar return from every district in England. He had applied for it to the noble Secretary for the Home Department, who had been kind enough to promise that he would procure him that return, if the registrar-general were able to afford it. He had since been informed, that the information which he wanted could not be procured. If he had been able to obtain it he had no doubt, that the general return from the whole kingdom would have borne out the return he had just read from the Wincanton district. He thought, that the returns which he had just read to the House were sufficient proofs of the increase of bastardy since the New Poor-law came into operation. It was also notorious, that it was not till they were in the last stage of destitution, that the mothers of these bastards sought for refuge in the workhouse. He held in his hand a table containing, the numbers of paupers who had been relieved, with a division of them into classes, at Christmas, 1838, and at Christmas, 1839, respectively. From this table it appeared, that the increase in the number of illegitimate children admitted into the workhouse in the last of those years was one-fifth, and that the increase in admission of the mothers of bastards within the same time was 663, casting an increase of charge to that extent upon the different unions. Did not this prove, that there had been a great abuse either in the administration of the law or in the law itself affecting bastardy? It was impossible, he conceived, for any man to assert, that the law, as it existed at present, was either proper or perfect; and the only question then was, what law ought to be proposed in lieu of it? It was absurd to say, that a civil action would afford redress for the injury thus inflicted on the female part of the population. Unfortunately for England, to the 969 million there was no remedy for the seduction of a daughter, owing to the expense of procuring it, whilst to the rich such a remedy was open if they thought proper to apply for it. Ought such a state of law to continue? He thought not. What, then, was his remedy? The bill then before the House. That bill, though his production, emanated from much higher authority than his own. He had the authority of the Poor Law Commissioners themselves in its favour. In their first general report, they said, We participate in the feelings of detestation of the crime of seduction; but the principle, that poor-law administration should be the administration of relief alone, cannot be departed from by the introduction of anything having a view to punishment, without at the same time creating far greater evils than those which it is intended to repress. Neither can any existing authority for the dispensation of relief be safely considered as properly constituted as a judicatory for the award of private satisfaction for wrongs or for the infliction of punishment. It appears to be commonly overlooked in the complaints on this subject, that for the injury of seduction the courts of law afford a remedy; and to any objection which might be made that this remedy is too costly, or is otherwise out of the reach of the poor, we submit that the proper remedial course of legislation would be to render justice, dispensed by proper judicial functionaries, accessible to the poorest classes of the community. In that opinion he most fully concurred, and hoped to carry it into effect by means of this bill. He had already alluded to the evidence given by Mr. Power on the increase of bastardy in the West Riding of Yorkshire and Lancashire. The evidence given by that gentleman before the Poor-law Committee, was known to many hon. Members, and when he said, that it was upon that evidence that he had founded this bill, he thought that the House would not deem him guilty of intruding upon it a piece either of idle or theoretic legislation. He had divided the bill into two parts—one relating to seduction when effected under a breach of promise of marriage; the other to seduction when effected by other means. The remedy for the first offence was in the nature of a remedy for breach of contract—the remedy for the second was framed upon the loss of service. In both cases pregnancy must take place before the bill could come into operation. The next question was—" To what tribunal should the adjudication of these 970 offences be referred?" If the bill which was brought in last year for the establishment of county courts had passed into law, and had those courts been presided over, as was intended, by barristers of considerable experience, he should have had no hesitation in placing the civil remedy for this species of injury under the cognizance of those tribunals. But, as he had no hopes of such a measure being passed, he should find the tribunal he wanted in the special sessions of the magistracy. As there was publicity given to their proceedings, and as there was generally on such occasions a full attendance of magistrates, he should provide that there be eight special sessions in the year. Then arose the question of damages, which was a question of some difficulty. If you placed the amount of damages too high, you incurred a double danger—first, the chance of women allowing themselves to be seduced, in expectation of obtaining them; and next, the chance of the magistrates refusing to inflict them out of compassion to the offender. If you placed them too low, then came the danger of the bill proving wholly ineffective. He had therefore limited them to 30l., which the magistrates might award to be paid at once, or spread over six instalments, the whole payable within eighteen months. It was necessary for him to state next, who the persons suing for these damages should be, and to whom when recovered, the damages should go. In those cases where the seduction was effected in consequence of a breach of promise of marriage, the woman would be entitled to sue; but in those cases where the seduction was effected by other means, the father and mother of the woman seduced, or where there was no father and no mother, the master and mistress in whose service she was, should be entitled to sue on her behalf. In the first class of cases, the penalty would go to the woman, and in the second to the parties suing in trust for the bastard. He meant his bill to apply, not to the vicious, but to the unfortunate. He also proposed to give the magistrate leave to judge in the first instance, whether he would hear the case or not. If he was inclined to hear it, then a summons to appear should be delivered to the man at least ten days before the hearing; and, at the hearing he should come forward with all the evidence he had to rebut the charge. He should also enact, that there 971 should be no judgment against the man on the unsupported evidence of the woman. He had now explained to the House the principle of his bill; and if he could only obtain their sanction to it, he would willingly leave the details of it in their hands. Since he had first introduced the bill, he had received so many accounts of the hardships inflicted under the present law that he could not think of wearying the House by reading them. Sorry was he to say it, but the fact was undeniable, that among farmers' sons and domestic servants, seduction was constantly taking place. The consequence was, that too often the woman had no other refuge but the workhouse, and, owing to the want of classification, which prevailed in those places, any woman who once entered it, must come out demoralized. After some other observations, which the noise in the House rendered inaudible, the hon. Member concluded by moving that the bill be then read a second time.

§ The Attorney-General
rose to oppose the motion. The bill introduced a novel principle into our legislation, and that, too, a principle of great danger. He would not now enter into a contest with the hon. Member opposite, as to whether the seduction clauses of the Poor Law Amendment Act, had had a good or a bad effect: he would only say, that from all he had heard, he believed, they had had a very good effect, and that seduction was much less common than it had been previous to the passing of that act. He would also add, that he thought the proposed system would occasion a much greater amount of seduction than had been ever before known. He would now point out the details of the bill. For the first time in the legislation of this country, there was to be a compensation purely for the loss of chastity, and for the first time for a great many years, the want of chastity was to be made a crime. At one time fornication had been a crime by law, but that had been found to be so inconvenient, that the law was rarely enforced. The bill of the hon. Gentleman said, that any woman who should be seduced by promise of marriage, might go before a justice of peace, who was to summon the supposed seducer before the petty sessions, in order that they might hear the complaint. What a wide door this would open to vice and fraud! In the first place, women would be much less 972 careful of their chastity than they would be if they did not trust to such a resource as the bill would give them. Then a woman, however false her story might be, would go before the petty sessions, where a penalty of 30l. might be awarded to her. The hon. Member, had, however, introduced a proviso, which would nullify the remedy he wished to give in cases of real injustice. Evidence must be brought that the woman had been seduced under promise of marriage; therefore the bill would not apply in any case except where a man had made a promise of marriage coram testibus, and afterwards seduced the woman. If the 30l. were not paid, the man was to go to gaol for a period of six months. He (the Attorney-General) was very much adverse to the establishment of such a law, and he should therefore move that the bill be read a second time that day six months.

§ Mr. Benett
thought something should be done to repress indiscriminate seduction; and that some protection should be afforded to the female which the present law did not give her. Under the state of the law which until lately existed, the man who seduced a woman was bound to support her child if she had one, and this led to some degree of circumspection on his part. Under the present law there was no protection for the female sex; and he thought that some attempt should be made to remedy this evil. With regard to seductions under promise of marriage there might certainly be some difficulty in proving such a case. But in many instances it might be done. For instance, it very frequently happened that a man seduced a woman after having as a blind published the banns of marriage, and in such a case there could be no difficulty on the score of evidence. With respect to the bill now before the House, though he (Mr. Benett) did not approve of much of it in detail, he should mark his approval of its principles by voting for the second reading.

§ Mr. Slaney
believed the new poor-law had operated as a great protection to females by removing those temptations which formerly existed for consenting to the improper addresses of men. He thought, however, that something should yet be done to give further protection to women seduced under promise of marriage, which was proposed to be done by this bill. He did not approve, however, of giving the 973 woman 30l. damages for the loss of her chastity, which he feared would too often operate as a temptation to yield to seduction. He thought that it would be more proper that the money recovered against the man should be paid to the poor-rates, or some fund for the maintenance of the child.

Mr. Miles
, in reply said, that all he wanted was that the House should approve of the principle upon which his bill was founded, and then, being well aware of the great difficulties by which the subject was surrounded, he should be very happy to resign it into the abler hands of the Attorney-General.

Mr. Villiers
said, that if the hon. Gentleman's bill had in view to render justice accessible to the poor, he would give it his ready assent; and he admitted in this case that it was an enormous evil that poor women should have no redress if they really had endured a wrong; but the hon. Gentleman had not by his bill solved the real difficulty in the case, which was a competent tribunal before whom they were to appear and obtain their remedy: he only had proposed by this bill to give fresh powers to the gentry who were the local magistrates, and which it would do in a material degree, and he thought in this case, where the sons, or the servants, or the dependants of the magistracy might be the parties whose cases they would have to decide, that the objections which did exist at present to the magistracy, namely, that their judgments might be biassed by their local interests or their local prejudices, would apply in a striking degree in this case. Let the hon. Gentleman say that he would support a good system of local courts to provide for a competent administration of justice throughout the country, and he would have his ready concurrence, and he believed that of every person on his side of the House, in any plan for affording any redress which the poor might seek or demand. But he, for one, not having confidence in the country justices, as they were at present appointed, could not consent to extend their powers in this respect.

§ Mr. Freshfield
approved of the principles of the bill, and would support the second reading, without, however, expressing any opinion upon its details.

§ Mr. Hawes
opposed the bill, because he thought it would in fact legalize seduction on the part of the rich. Any man who 974 could pay 30l., might under this bill seduce at pleasure, and the parents of the unfortunate girl would be excluded from their remedy in a court of law.

List of the AYES.
Adare, Lord	Hope, hon. C.
Ashley, Lord	Houldsworth, T.
Baldwin, C. B.	Houstoun, G.
Baring, H. B.	Jackson, Sergeant
Barnard, E. G.	Kelburne, Viscount
Barrington, Viscount	Knight, H. G.
Benett, J.	Lascelles, W. S.
Blackburn, I.	Lennox, Lord A.
Bowes, J.	Mackenzie, W.
Bramston, T. W.	Morris, D.
Burrell, Sir C.	Northland, Lord
Burroughes, H. N.	Palmer, G.
Cochrane, Sir T.	Parker, R. T.
Courtenay, P.	Peel, rt. hon. Sir R.
Duffield, T.	Polhill, F.
Dundas, C. W. D.	Pusey, P.
East, J. B.	Richards, R.
Eastnor, Lord	Round, C. G.
Egerton, W. T.	Sheppard, T.
Eliot, Lord	Slaney, R. A.
Farnham, E. B.	Somerset, rt.hnLordG.
Finch, F.	Sotherton, T. E.
Fitzroy, hon. H.	Talfourd, Sergeant
Fremantle, Sir T.	Wilbraham, G.
Freshfield, J. W.	Winnington, Sir T. E.
Gladstone, W. E.	Wood, B.
Graham, rt. hn. Sir J,	Worsley, Lord
Greene, T.	TELLERS.
Harcourt, G. G.	Miles, W.
Heathcoat, J.	Liddell, hon. H. T

List of the NOES.
Aglionby, H. A.	James, W.
Aglionby, Major	Lennox, Lord G.
Alston, R.	Lushington, C.
Baring, rt. hon. F. T.	Maule, hon. F.
Baring, hon. F.	Nicholl, J.
Baring, hon. W.	O'Ferrall, R.
Bewes, T.	Paget, F.
Bruges, W. H.	Pakington, J. S.
Bryan, G.	Pattison, J.
Buller, C.	Philips, M.
Busfield, W.	Ponsonby, C. F.
Byng, G. S.	Redington, T. N.
Callaghan, D.	Rutherfurd, rt. hn. A.
Campbell, Sir J.	Salwey, Col.
Clements, Viscount	Sanford, E. A.
Clive, E. B.	Sheil, rt. hon. R. L.
Corbally, M. E.	Smith, J. A.
Cresswell, C.	Smith, B.
Duncombe,T. D.	Stanley, hon. E.
Evans, W.	Strutt, E.
Gordon, R.	Tufnell, H.
Grey, rt. hon. Sir C.	Vigors, N. A.
Hamilton, C. J. B.	Wakley, T.
Hector, C. J.	Warburton, H,
Hobhouse, T. B.	White, A.
Hughes, W. B.	Williams, W.

Wrightson, W.	TELLERS.
Wyse, T.	Hawes, C.
Young, J.	Villiers, C.