MOTION FOR SECOND READING. (Hansard, 19 May 1857)

§ SIR GEORGE GREY

said, he felt it his duty to oppose the further progress of this Bill. The present law empowered two magistrates and a stipendiary magistrate to commit to prison for a period not exceeding six months, and to impose a fine not exceeding £20. The Bill of his hon. Friend reduced the maximum of imprisonment from six months to two, and repealed the fine, both of which alterations he (Sir G. Grey) thought uncalled for and injudicious. But there was another feature of the Bill to which he objected still more strongly—namely, that which gave power to two ordinary magistrates, and to one stipendiary magistrate, to order the punishment of whipping. If that provision was adopted, it would be the only instance on record in our statute book in which, without the intervention of a jury, a magistrate could inflict the punishment of whipping on adult males. While participating in the general indignation against persons who committed these offences, he must protest against the infringing one of the great principles of our law, and the entrusting such a power to one or even two magistrates without the intervention of a jury. The only case at all analogous in the present law was, the power given to justices at quarter sessions to inflict the punishment of whipping on incorrigible vagrants—persons, that is, who had been repeatedly convicted of vagrancy; but a court of quarter sessions was very different from a single magistrate, and, in point of fact, the punishment was never inflicted. He could not see that any ground had been laid for an alteration of the existing law, which he believed had worked well, or for introducing a new punishment, which, however it might be deserved in some cases, ought not to be inflicted, he thought, without the intervention of a jury. With 541 regard to the frequent appearance of reports of assaults on women in the newspapers, that was owing to the circumstance that the parties committing them now got brought to justice as they deserved, whereas formerly, from the expense and uncertainty of a trial at the sessions, they almost invariably escaped. He should therefore move that the Bill be now read a second time that day six mouths. Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day six months.

§ MR. DILLWYN

said, that the right hon. Baronet had taken a different issue to what he had expected. He (Mr. Dillwyn) did not mean to say that the present law had done no good; his argument was that it had not reduced these offences to the minimum number. His reason for proposing a diminution of the period of imprisonment from six to two months was that generally six months' imprisonment of the husband meant six months' starvation or dependence on the parish for his wife and family. He should be glad that these cases should be submitted to juries were it not that the adoption of such a course would give rise to much delay and considerable expense, which would defeat the objects of his measure. He proposed to substitute the punishment of whipping for that of imprisonment, because those who committed these offences were usually such savage brutes that an appeal to their sense of feeling was the only one which was likely to be attended with success. He did not deny that the present system bad reduced these offences, but what he said was, that it had not reduced them to the minimum which the country had a right to expect. He would, therefore, ask the House to try the measure he proposed as an experiment. If he failed, if crime was committed to the same extent as at present, by all means he should say repeal it, and try some other. He did hope, therefore, as no other plan had been suggested as yet, the House would allow the Bill to be read a second time, and allow the remedy to be tried, which he had proposed. Question put, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question.