§ MR. P. A. TAYLORI rise, Sir, to ask the kind attention of the House while I bring before it a magisterial decision which, from its extraordinary and unusual harshness and severity, has excited feelings of great surprise wherever it has been read or heard of, and has naturally produced a much greater feeling of bitterness in the country side where it took place. Circumstances, which I need not now advert to, have prevented me from bringing this subject previously before the House. I am quite aware a long time has elapsed since the occurrence of this case; and I should not, perhaps, have brought this matter forward now, after so great a lapse of time, but for the answer given me by the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for the Home Department to a question which I put to him on this very subject. There is one element in this affair which makes my task a peculiarly irksome one, and that is that, although my object is to point to a system of summary judicature which I think an absurd one, I have to point by way of illustration to a particular case and a particular individual, and in criticizing his conduct before the House I may expose myself to the suspicion of introducing an element of personality. But nothing, Sir, could be 1609 further from my wishes than to do that, and I can with confidence assure the Mouse that this is a matter about which I could not possibly have the slightest personal feeling. There is another consideration somewhat of the same kind in which, I have no doubt, the House will go with me, and that is, that the noble Lord whose conduct I am about to criticize bears a name which belonged to one, whose death, since I put this Notice on the Paper, has been a national loss—one who will ever be regarded by the House and this country with respect and admiration as the consistent advocate of Liberal principles and political progress through a long life that was above suspicion—I mean the late Karl of Radnor. I am quite aware, Sir, that, on account of the course I took some two years ago, with reference to magisterial decisions, caused the hon. Member for Oxfordshire to say I was going to occupy the place of the late Mr. Duncombe, and that I was the grievance monger" of the House. But if there were no grievance to amend, no grievance could be spoken of; and perhaps the only reason why I am pointed out as a "grievance monger" is that the grievances I have pointed out are the grievances of humble persons who are not too largely represented. The story I have to tell is this—On the 27th of March, last three children, Ann Hay, aged fourteen, her brother, George Hay, aged eight, and Lydia Grove, aged eleven, were brought before the magistrates at Salisbury, charged with stealing rape greens, of the value of 1s. Viscount Folkstone presided on the bench. Mr. Good did not press for a severe punishment. The father of the Hays said he had only been in the city four months. He knew nothing of his children getting greens. Lydia Grove said a man told them they might pick the greens. The bench considered the guilt of the children proved, and the two oldest were sentenced to pay a fine of £1 and costs, or go to prison for a month. Still the majority of the magistrates could not stomach sending the youngest-child to prison. Lord Folkestone expressed his sorrow at having to withdraw the little boy's sentence, adding that he thought it would do the little child good to go to gaol with the rest. The severity of the magistrates at Salisbury excited considerable indignation in the public mind, and sonic person wrote a 1610 letter to the Daily Telegraph, inclosing a cheque for £1 to defray the fines and costs awarded against the children. The cheque was sent to Salisbury, but it was then found that a Mr. Green, of Wilton, had paid the fines and costs, and the children were liberated. Lord Folkestone said that the superintendent of the city police, when sent for and questioned, gave the defendant Grove a very bad character. But, so far from this being the case, it was distinctly stated that the boy and his sister were unknown to the police at all, and that their parents had only been residing in Salisbury for five months. Of the other girl, Mr. Superintendent White said her character was indifferent; but the only allegation in support of that was that she had been seen begging about the streets, but even, she had never been in the custody of the police upon any charge whatever. It seemed, therefore, to me, Sir, that this was a case so extravagantly severe that I should be fully justified in asking a question with respect to it of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department. Well, Sir, I did not expect a great deal from the right hon. Gentleman, but I certainly thought he might say—"It does seem a little hard"—I did think he might say— "I will make an inquiry"—I did think he might say, "On the whole the thing was quite right, but we hope it will not occur again." But not one word did he say in alleviation of the matter, and, having taken it up once, I felt bound to bring the whole subject under the notice of the House. Well, Sir, what did the right hon. Gentleman say? I must say he used that sort of phrase which is common enough upon the Treasury Bench, and which scarcely conveys any meaning—that kind of phrase which keeps away altogether from the real point at issue. The right hon. Gentleman said he had received—
No representations on the subject. It was neither the custom nor the duty of the Homo Secretary to animadvert on the decisions of Judges or magistrates, unless representations were made with respect to them, and then, if the representations appeared worthy of attention, inquiries were instituted. In the present case no representations whatever had been made.Now, it could hardly be necessary for a Cabinet Minister to rise from the Treasury Bench to toll that House that—It was neither the custom nor the duty of the Home Secretary to animadvert on the decisions 1611 of the Judges or magistrates, unless representations were made with respect to them.Now, it had been presented to them and to the House, even by so humble an individual as I am. But did the right hon. Gentleman think he was likely to hear of the matter from the parties who had been injured? Was it likely that the friends of the wretched peasant children who had been imprisoned for stealing a handful of greens would appeal against the decision of the majestic Salisbury bench of magistrates who had become the terror of the country side? Will the right hon. Gentleman say there was nothing wrong in sending children of that tender age to prison? The noble Lord said he thought the excuse made for not sending the boy to gaol would only tend to increase the number and decrease the age of the green stealers in the neighbourhood. I declare that, if such a view be right, there is no reason why babies in the arms should not be committed for aiding and abetting their mothers for stealing a handful of greens. I appeal to this House and to the country, whether the mere fact of sending children of such an age, for such a crime, to gaol, is not an infamy and a disgrace to our civilization? I believe that in no other civilized country—indeed, I might add, a fortiori, in no uncivilized country —could such a thing have, taken place; and I feel confident that in any other part of Christendom the greatest astonishment would be felt at this exhibition of "Justices' justice." We are living in times now, Sir, when men profess to wish to see the country governed on what may be called the flesh and blood principle, and that every Englishman must be regarded equally as our fellow-creatures. Let me ask how hon. Members of this House would feel if this matter personally concerned them? Let me put such a ease as this—There are many Members who have at home lads of eight or ten years of age, and are those little curled darlings immaculate? Are not many of them full of fun and mischief? Did they never break down a hedge, or takes a bird's nest? Did they never take an apple from an orchard, or take an egg from a nest? What would their feelings be if they found their little ones taken up for such offences? How would they feel if some Salisbury Rhadamanthus had sent them to gaol? I should not like to be the 1612 convicting magistrate the next time parents, under such circumstances, met me in the hunting-field or the marketplace. Let us just think of this Salisbury justice lecturing this child of eight years old in this May—If you are caught at this sort of thing again you will so to gaol, and perhaps get a flogging into the bargain. You recollect that, and don't go picking people's greens and stealing them.Now, Sir, this bench of magistrates are apparently not actuated in this or any other case by any feeling of spite or malice against the individuals, but they have elevated severity into a system and established on that country side some-thing like a reign of terror. I have had a number of cases connected with the Salisbury Bench brought under my notice. I am aware that it is perfectly impossible to form a judgment at a distance as to matters of fact in such cases, and I shall, therefore, only mention to the House those in which the matter of fact is admitted, and then the only question will be as to the severity of the punishment. The only exception is this case—Two years ago that bench of magistrates sent to prison two poachers. In that it appears they got hold of the wrong man, and an alibi was proved at the trial. The evidence was strong, and it seemed impossible to resist it; but nothing could move the bench of magistrates to keep the man from their punishment, and even when some other men who were committed to prison confessed the crime, it was a long time before the necessary communications were made to the Home Office. On the 5th of September, last year, George Clarke was charged with stealing an apple of the value of ½d. The prosecutor said he did not press for, or wish any severe punishment to be inflicted, but he wished to convince the people that they had no right to his fruit. Lord Folkestone said—The defendant must have known he was doing wrong, and cases of this description come before the Bench year after year; slight punishments have been inflicted, but the people take no warning, and they will not be convinced till they get it pretty sharp. The defendant was liable to three months' imprisonment; but as Mr. Waters strongly recommended him to mercy, the sentence was mitigated to three weeks with hard labour.In another case, two men were convicted of pointing an old gun, which would not go off, at a cock pheasant on the side of the road. They attempted to fire at it, 1613 but the gun would not go off; they tried it a second time, but still the cap snapped, and then the men went off. The keeper, who was hiding, and who said he saw them distinctly, thought they had gone for more powder, and determined to watch until they came back; but, finding they did not come back, he went to the police office and charged them with the offence. But there was a second keeper hiding in another place, unknown to the first keeper, and while one of these swore that it was light enough to identify the prisoners, the other swore that it was so dark that he could not see their faces. However, for the crime of pointing an old gun at a cock pheasant, the men were sent to prison with hard labour. Of all the sacred birds and beasts worshipped in India or Egypt, not one of them was afforded so much protection, care, and consideration, as was the English cock pheasant. John Elkins was also charged in January with poaching; four pheasants were found on him, and it was acknowledged that he was a notorious poacher. He was sentenced to a term of six months' imprisonment, and called upon to find sureties for good behaviour for two years: or, in default., to be sent to prison for one year. There could be no doubt, he was a poacher, but the only remark I have to make upon the sentence is this, that he might have flogged half-a-dozen women within an inch of their lives, and not have been sentenced to so severe a punishment under the present law. We have been told over and over again that if the game laws were to be done away with, the country gentlemen would cease to reside on their estates; that they are the glory of the country side, and their presence is always hailed with pleasure; but if all the country magistrates and landlords were like those who sit upon the Salisbury bench —which thank heaven they are not—I doubt very much whether the country generally would rejoice in the presence of the landlords any more than they seem to do at Salisbury. They may be very ungrateful, in which case hon. Gentlemen would per-haps address them, in the words of Virgil—O fortunates nimium, sua si bona norint, Agricolas!My Lord Folkestone says, that mild punishment has been tried without effect, and that is the reason he resorts to ex- 1614 traordinary seventy. But really, Sir, country gentlemen seem to still cling to the superstitions of their ancestor, who used to hang for every trivial theft, and to believe that severity of punishment was the best means of putting down crime. That theory, or superstition if you will, has passed away entirely from the minds of all except our country justices; and it is now generally admitted that if the punishment of a crime has no reference to the demerits of the party, and is out of all proportion to the equity of the case, you eliminate from the minds of the class suffering such punishment those elements on which alone any morality, worthy of the name, can be based. And the punishment appears to be not so much the act of a judicial tribunal, acting with a strict regard to justice, but as an act of retaliatory vengeance on the part of one class towards another, and which produces in that class a feeling with regard to these offences that their repetition is not so much an offence against; justice and equity as of vengeance against the common enemy, which they will carry out whenever time and opportunity permit them to do so. That, Sir, is the case which I have to bring before the House,, and I thank the House for having listened with such patience to views which I venture to say cannot be very palatable to many hon. Members present. I have not ventured to ask the House to agree to an Address to Her Majesty, praying Her that Lord Folkestone may be removed from the Commission of the Peace; and for this simple reason, that in a House constituted as this is there would be very little chance of my carrying such a Motion, and more especially as the Home Secretary seems to think that the fact of two young children being subjected to the contamination of a prison for a month is a subject not worthy of his consideration. I very much doubted whether it was not my duty to make such a Motion, and if there had been the smallest chance of success I should have done so. I do not wish, Sir, on the other hand, while complaining of a wrong and an injustice, to do an injustice to the noble Lord against whom I should have made the Motion. It is not given to every wan posessing wealth, station, and dignity in this country, to possess those qualities which constitute the qualification of a Judge—tact, temper, and discrimination—which are 1615 nowhere more necessary than when men have a summary jurisdiction conferred upon them. For my own part, Sir, I should like to see magistrates appointed for the same qualities for which Judges are appointed. As to the Judges, everybody admits they present an extraordinary fitness for the offices they fill. They are appointed and are apart from all political or social influences, and their decisions are accepted with respect and obeyed with reverence. But it is not so, Sir, with respect to our country justices; for, if a man be a landowner of great influence in the county, that is held sufficient to constitute him a judge over his fellow-men; and when once appointed, it follows that he can never be removed from his position, unless for some gross misconduct, or some malicious attack on the rights and liberties of people subjected to his power. I have not the slightest doubt that Lord Folkestone thought he was doing his duty; but all I have to say is, that when he deals out such severe punishments for such minor offences as this, he is, in my opinion, no judge. If, therefore, I have not ventured to make a Motion on this subject, but have simply contented myself with stating the facts of the case, my object in doing so is to show that whenever there is a sentence of such extreme severity, so unproportioned to the offence as occasionally shocks the ears of the country, there will be at least one Member, however humble, who will think it his duty to hold up such conduct to reprobation, in this, the great inquest of the nation.
MR. BRUCEsaid, that he was sure no one would blame any hon. Member who might feel it his duty to bring before that House any instance of undue severity. Any Member who did so, with strict regard to justice, not only for those whose cause he undertook, but also for those whose conduct, he impugned, would receive the sympathy and approval of the House. But when any hon. Member took on himself to assail the conduct of others, it was his duty—and he was sure his hon. Friend (Mr. P. A. Taylor) would admit the propriety of the remark—to ascertain well the whole facts of the case, and, having ascertained the facts, to detail them fully to the House. Before proceeding to mention what, the facts were on which his hon. Friend had animadverted, he 1616 must beg to state that it was no part of his duty to revise all the sentences passed on prisoners which he a night observe in the newspapers, and which might appear on the face of them to be unreasonable. That was no part of his duty, unless cases were brought regularly before him which appeared to require revision. Nothing would be easier—for the Home Office was open to all—than for the friends of these poor children, for instance, or for any lover of humanity and justice in the neighbourhood of Salisbury having a knowledge of the facts, to have brought them before him; and he need not give the assurance that they would have received as much attention on his part as when they were publicly stated in that House. His hon. Friend had brought a charge, not only against Lord Folkestone, but against the bend) of justices. He compared the offence committed by these children to that which perhaps no hon. Member present had himself in his youth committed, but which they must all have known some one to have committed—stealing an apple from an orchard; and he said how cruel it was for such an offence to take a child from the home of its virtuous parents and expose it to the contamination of a gaol. Now, what were the facts? The case, as stated, was that for stealing out of a field a few greens, valued at 1s., two children—one fourteen and the other eleven—had been fined 20s., and in default committed to prison for one month. The law had been changed with respect to stealing such articles from fields, and he quite agreed in the change in the law. Such an offence was no longer a felony, but a trespass. In many cases the trespass was of an insignificant character, as the taking of a turnip from a field: though he thought anyone's moral sense must be offended when they saw a labourer go into a field and steal turnips without being punished. But in this case the real facts proved before the magistrates were these—In certain fields where greens were grown, at some distance from Salisbury, there had been wholesale pillage; a policeman was set to watch, and he detected these children carrying off 1½cwt. of greens. They had brought out of Salisbury, a distance of a mile, a sack and three wraps which were all full. The quantity was so great that, according to the evidence given, 1617 the children could not have earned the load into the town; they must have been taking it to some place of deposit, where they would be met by some one to convey the burden into Salisbury. Under the circumstances it appeared next to impossible that the parents of these children had not sent them out fur the purpose of pillage. It was not likely that the children would have taken the sack and wraps of their own mere notion to bring back 1½cwt. of greens, their parents being ignorant of the fact. It was proved before the justices that those children had been in the fields on previous days stealing greens; complaints were made of the heavy losses sustained by the Tanners, a policeman was in consequence placed to watch, and it had since been ascertained that one of the girls had been in the habit of selling greens at various places in Salisbury. The offence therefore was not that of stealing a handful of greens, but ½cwt.—the offence having been frequently committed by the same parties, and committed, in ail probability, by the authority of their parents. When a heavy fine was inflicted on children it was not intended as a punishment for the children but for the parents, with whose knowledge the offence must have been committed. That he assumed without any knowledge, of Lord Folkestone or any other member of the bench. His hon. Friend had inveighed against the sentence so passed on these children, and he wished some other punishment could be devised for the offences of children than imprisonment; but he could not believe that children would suffer more contamination in prison than if they continued to reside with such parents as they had the misfortune to have. It should also be remembered that punishment was imposed with a view to deter others from the commission of the same offences. It was no part of his duty to defend the conduct of magistrates. Not only justices of the peace, but the highest Judges of the land had occasionally laid themselves open to animadversion for the sentences they pronounce. Quot homines, tot sentential. Nothing could be more startling frequently than the apparent inequality of sentences where offences appeared almost identical. He was entirely unacquainted with the other facts which his hon. Friend had brought forward. It was possible that 1618 the Justices of Salisbury had occasionally inflicted punishments of great severity; but, in the present case, he could not say, considering what the laws of the country were, considering the manner in which they were generally administered, that the punishment was in itself excessive for the offence. He must assume that the justices were satisfied, from the evidence, that these children had not only committed the offence, but under circumstances of premeditation, not for the first time, and that they also considered that the line inflicted was for the purpose of reaching the parents. The sentence pronounced was intended as an example in the neigbourhood, and he could not think that the warning of such a punishment would be without its due effect.
§ MR. BOUVERIEsaid, his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department had stated with great truth the facts of the case, and he was in a position to mention some additional facts which would illustrate the rashness of the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. P. A. Taylor) in coming to the conclusion he had announced as to the manner in which those justices had discharged their duty to the public. He thought the punishment awarded for the offence a very proper one. The practice of stealing greens in the neighbourhood of Salisbury had been carried on to a very great extent, and great complaint was made by the owners of those small garden allotments, a class of humble men, of which the hon. Member for Leicester set himself up as the special guardian. They were the great sufferers. These parties were regularly plundered, and the greens were taken to Salisbury and sold in the market. It was no doubt hard to send children to prison for a month, but considering the example they must have set before them at home, it would, perhaps have been better if they could have been sent to prison for a longer period and then to a reformatory, where they would have some chance of learning industry and morality, instead of being made the instruments of wicked and unnatural parents for purposes of plunder. Whatever might be the case with regard to the children the sympathy of the House would be ill bestowed on such parents. he could not understand why the name of his noble Relative should have been 1619 brought forward so prominently on this occasion, as if he were the sole responsible person, for besides Lord Folkestone thorn were present on the bench seven Wiltshire gentlemen as intelligent and independent as could be found in any' other part of the country. In fact, as to part of this very ease, the view taken by Lord Folkestone had been over-ruled by a majority of those on the bench with him. With regard to the other cases which the hon. Member had brought forward he had given no notice of them. He (Sir. Bouverie; knew nothing of them. The hon. Member told some story of a cock pheasant, but if it had been about a cock and a bull, it would, perhaps, have been more appropriate. They were brought forward, he presumed, to give weight to the case against the magistrates in the present instance. The hon. Gentleman who made this charge started with the assumption that the bench, of magistrates were disposed to deal harshly and unfairly towards the unfortunate people brought before thorn; but, for his own part, he believed nothing of the kind. According to his experience, he came to the conclusion that, though, like all other men, justices of the peace were not perfectly immaculate, there was on the whole a determination on their part to do justice by those whose cases they had to deal with. The hon. Member for Leicester probably had not much experience of country magistrates; but his own experience had taught him that the rural population had the most perfect confidence in the fairness of the? bench of magistrates; and if, ns some improvers desired, stipendiary magistrates were {substituted for the unpaid country justices, he doubted whether they would enjoy the same amount of confidence. The hon. Member had done well in not ranking a Motion on the subject, because the facts adduced established no case of accusation against the magistrates, who simply did their duty in what he must call a most trumpery case; and he trusted that magistrates would not be deterred from acting according to their own sense of duty by such charge? of oppression, unfairness, and iniquity as had been made in the present case.
§ MR. ASSHRTON CROSSsaid, that when small children were brought up before magistrates it was a difficult matter to know how to act for the pro- 1620 tection of the public without dealing harshly towards the children. He believed that the best thing they could do with such children would be to give them a good whipping and send them home, but the magistrates had no power to order that punishment. Where there was an honest and industrious parent they might get him to give the child a whipping; bur in many eases the fault was move the fault of the parent than the child, and in such cases he should like to punish the parent rather than the child. He thought it would be an advantage if in cases like that brought before the House, magistrates had the power to send the child to an industrial school, and to compel the parent, when able, to pay the expense of the schooling.
MR. GILPINsaid, he could not consent to a case of this kind being treated in the way the right hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Bouverie) had treated it, who railed it a trumpery case. Very few cases could be more deserving the attention of the House than the present, when brought forward by an hon. Member who had taken pains to inquire into the matter, believing it to be one of oppression on the part of country magistrates. He was not prepared to agree with the hon. Member for Leicester in his wholesale denunciation of country magistrates, but in that House, which was formed, it might be said, of country magistrates, he was unwilling that the only voice raised on behalf of these poor children should be that of the hon. Member for Leicester. If the children had acted under the direction of the parents, why should not the parents, instead of the children, be punished?
§ MR. ANTROBUSsaid, that if the hon. Member for Leicester (Mr. P. A. Taylor) had properly inquired into the case, he would have found that it was not a small quantity of greens that was taken for the purpose of making a wretched supper, but that as much as a hundredweight and a-half was stolen; and it was not right to accuse the magistrates of harsh conduct for the course which they pursued. The case of apple stealing to which the hon. Member alluded was one of deliberate premeditation, and not one of merely jumping over a hedge to get an apple on the spur of the moment.