LEAVE. FIRST READING. (Hansard, 12 May 1857)

§ MR. DILLWYN,
in moving for leave to introduce a Bill to repeal the Act 16 & 17 Vict., c. 30, and to make better provision for the prevention and punishment of Aggravated Assaults upon Women and Children, and for preventing delay and expense in the Administration of certain parts of the Criminal Law, said, that he trusted that he should be able to show to Her Majesty's Government that the time had now arrived when some alteration in the Act of Parliament upon this subject was imperative, and that he would have their support for the Bill he now proposed. When a similar proposition was brought forward in 1853 the noble Lord at the head of Her Majesty's Government, speaking of an Amendment to the existing Act, moved by his Friend Mr. Phinn, then Member for Bath, by which Amendment it was proposed to inflict corporal punish- 212 ment for aggravated assaults upon women and children, asked the House first of all to try the remedy then proposed, and then if it failed he should not oppose the introduction of some stronger measure. Experience had shown that such a measure was now necessary, the offence in question not being perceptibly affected by the Act in question, and being very far indeed from a light one. He said this Bill was similar to that which he introduced last year, and one of his reasons for proposing it again was, that he had a new House to appeal to on the subject. He did not intend his measure to apply to cases in which a man had simply struck a woman, although that was unmanly enough, or had reasonably chastised a child. The cases with which he wished to deal were those in which a man, infuriated by evil passions or by drink, knocked down, kicked, trampled upon, and dragged by the hair the unfortunate victim of his brutality, or systematically beat a young child. To show that such cases really occurred, he quoted two cases from the police reports of the last year. In the first of these cases, which was tried at the Westminster Police-court— William Eberland, a tinker, living at Maidenhead-court, St. Ermine's-hill, Westminster, was charged with cruelty to Ellen Eberland, his child, aged twelve years. Complainant, a wretched picture of misery and neglect, said,—The defendant is my father. I have a mother, who lived at home with us, but is now in prison. My father heat me last night with a whip, because he had left some money on the shelf, which got lost, though I knew nothing about it. My father was drunk; he never beats me when he is sober. My mother has been away a long while. My two little sisters and brother were the only persons in the house. He took me out of bed, and beat me with the whip. I had nothing on but my chemise. I cried out till a woman came into the room, and then I went down stairs, and was taken to the workhouse. Ferris Carr, 206 B, said,—About half-past I this morning I was fetched to the house. I went upstairs and found the child naked, excepting a bit of a skirt round her body, bleeding from the shoulders and back. The prisoner had got a gutta percha whip in his hand, which he threw away when I entered. I told him I should take him to the station, when he said, 'I'll throw you out of the window.' I got assistance and took him into custody. He was drunk, but knew well what he was about. Mr. Arnold: What was the condition of the children? Witness: Most wretched; I never saw anything so bad in my life. Mrs. Elizabeth Perry, the next witness, said,—I was passing and heard shrieks and cries. I heard the poor child say, 'Father, father, pray don't beat me any more, I'll try and find the 213 money;' but he kept on boating her. A woman told me he had been beating her for two hours. I went to her; she had no skirt on. She was naked. I put the skirt on her, and covered her with the shawl she now wears. I noticed her back. She had been much beaten about and ill-used. I saw blood from the marks of the whip on her back and shoulders. The child was here examined, and her back appeared one mass of severe lacerations, reaching from the shoulders down to the waist. The gutta percha, whip (a stout riding whip with a thin point) was produced in court. A sergeant said that besides the lacerations exhibited on the body and shoulders, the child's legs were literally covered with wounds. A nurse from the workhouse proved that the child's back was bleeding very much. There were similar injuries on both thighs and the calves of the legs. All the children were in the most filthy state. A next-door neighbour to the accused proved hearing fearful cries of distress from the child for half an hour. She remonstrated, but he continued to beat her. Witness never heard cries before. The case was adjourned, in order to procure the evidence of other persons in the same house to show prisoner's previous treatment of the child.'' In the second — James Martin, a carpenter, was charged before Mr. D'Eyncourt with cruelty to his wife. Bristow, N 59, said, at two this morning, while on duty in Hoxton, I heard the sobs of a woman in Founder's-place, and on going a little further found the prisoner's wife crying, with a little child, which was almost naked, in her arms, and six other children in grief clinging to her. She said her husband had turned them all out, and on my asking why he had done so he invited me in. I refused, and as the woman and children came trembling up he exclaimed to his wife, with an oath, that he ' would give it to her,' and dealt a kick at her with all his force. The woman did not cry out, but I seized him, saying I could not see him commit such violence as that, and he instantly exclaimed 'I'll do for you, and struck her with his fist in the face. The blow, in my opinion, was struck as hard as he could hit her, for she reeled staggering against the wall of the passage, and when I saw her face full half an hour after wards it was very badly swollen. The man was somewhat the worse for drink, while the woman was perfectly sober, and, as she refused to charge him, I took hint to the Robert-street station and charged him myself. Mr.D'Eyncourt: I find that half the outrages upon women brought here arise from drunkenness. What do you say to the charge? Prisoner: Why, I don't recollect much about it. I have not had any work since Christmas. Mr. D'Eyncourt: And yet you can find money enough to get intoxicated, and while in that state ill-treat your wife and turn her and the whole of your children into the street at two in the morning. This is really too gross; you will go for two months' hard labour in the House of Correction, where, in spite of your inclination to the contrary, you will be kept sober, and when you come out of prison do remember the ties that 214 bind you, and try and keep sober in consideration of your wife and her helpless children. (To the officer of the district.) You will see if a little assistance is not wanted by his family during the man's imprisonment, Cases infinitely worse than these had occurred, but, as he did not wish to overstate his case, he would not refer to any others. The crime was one of frequent occurrence. In order to ascertain what effect the liability to a long imprisonment had in deterring persons from committing such assaults, he had moved for certain returns, by which he found that in the years 1854, 1355, the total number of convictions for this offence in the metropolis was 877. During the course of last year the number of convictions in the metropolis under the present Act were 374, and although the number was smaller than that of the preceding year, the diminution was very small, and there were a great many cases in which men who had been previously convicted of aggravated assaults were again brought before the magistrate charged with the same offence,—a circumstance which clearly proved that the present punishment of a lengthened imprisonment was inadequate to deter men from the commission of those assaults. In the Bill which he now asked for leave to introduce, he proposed to give power to inflict the only punishment which he believed would tend to check the offence, He proposed to diminish the term of imprisonment, but at the same time to place in the hands of the magistrates a power of ordering the ruffians a sound flogging, which was the only thing, he believed, that would be found really effectual. When he had brought forward this subject before, one of the leading prints had entirely mistaken the object he had in view, and had spoken of it as an interference between husbands and wives. In reality, it was not a question between a man and his wife, but between man and woman—between brute force and helpless weakness, as was easily proved; for during the past year, in the Hammersmith Police-court, out of forty-seven of these assaults, only twenty-seven were committed upon wives, while there had been one upon a sister, fourteen upon strangers, and five upon children, He hoped, therefore, that there would be no misapprehension that he intended to interfere between a man and his wife. The evil existed to a great extent, and having tried both fines and imprisonment, he appealed to the House to 215 try something which the perpetrators of it would feel. Generally he was averse to corporal punishment, but in these cases he thought it deserved. The hon. Gentleman concluded by moving for leave to bring in a Bill to repeal the Act of the 16 & 17 Vict. c. 30, and to make better provision for the prevention and punishment of Aggravated Assaults upon Women and Children, and for preventing delay and expense in the administration of certain parts of the Criminal Law.

§ MR. BENTINCK
seconded the Motion.

§ SIR GEORGE GREY
said, he had no great confidence in the efficiency of the remedy proposed, but would offer no objection to the introduction of the Bill; he wished, however, to add that in his opinion the hon. Gentleman had incorrectly assumed that the Act at present in force had been inoperative because a great number of cases of assault had been brought before the police-courts. The great object of that Act was to provide a remedy by affording immediate means of punishment. Before that Act it was found that in cases of Aggravated Assaults it was necessary to send them to sessions, and then in a vast majority of cases the sufferers would not come forward to give evidence, and the culprits escaped. That Act, however, provided that the person committing an assault could be brought before a magistrate immediately after the injury had been inflicted, and be summarily sentenced to six months' imprisonment with hard labour. Under these circumstances, no doubt, a greater number of cases were brought under the notice of the public than had been under the previous system; but still he had no doubt that that Act had in reality tended to diminish the actual number of these assaults. It had not, nor had any criminal act, put a complete stop to the crime which it was intended to reach, but it had produced results decidedly beneficial, and they would do well to pause and examine the matter well before they adopted an experimental remedy. If any further remedy, however, could be proposed, it was the duty of the House to take it into consideration, and he should not therefore oppose the introduction of the Bill.