MR. NEVILLE-GRENVILLEasked Mr. Attorney General, Whether it is a fact that six learned Counsel are retained to prosecute a prisoner now in Newgate charged with perjury; if so, whether it is necessary or usual to employ so many lawyers in a criminal case; and, further, whether it is the intention of the Government to maintain the system of disallowing the expenses of prosecutions in the provinces?
THE ATTORNEY GENERALWith regard, Sir, to this somewhat complicated Question, it is true that the number of counsel to the extent indicated in my hon. Friend's Question have been retained and will be employed in the prosecution of the various cases that will arise out of the several indictments preferred against the person who has lately laid claim to the estates of the Tichborne family, if the bills containing these indictments should be found to be true bills by the Grand Jury at the Old Bailey in the course of the present week. My hon. Friend has not mentioned the name of the person, but I assume that is what is meant by the Question. If it is not, I am unable to answer the Question, and I have no means of procuring the information he desires. On the assumption that this is the question, he goes on to ask me whether it is necessary or usual to employ so many lawyers in a criminal case. But as I am not raising a question, but only answering one, I will not say anything about the language in which it is couched, except that in coming from him to me it might be somewhat improved. In reply to him, I may say, that I should have thought that the slightest reflection would have shown my hon. Friend that the answer is dependent on the nature of the case, for what might be proper in one might be extremely improper in another. When he asks me whether it is necessary and usual to take a particular course in a criminal case, I have to say that I cannot tell him, because I do not know from my reading, and have no experience, after 25 years' practice at the Bar, of any case resembling this, or one which could be deemed a fair precedent for it. It is not the difficulty of the 889 case, because, as I have always said, it is an extremely simple one, and the claim always appeared to me to be an assault on the common sense of mankind. But from the enormous mass of the case there is an amount of papers and details of which no one who has not the misfortune to be engaged in it can have the slightest notion. I suppose my hon. Friend has no idea of the subject-matter himself from the manner in which he has put the Question; but I can say for myself, that without the absolutely invaluable assistance I have received from my colleagues, it would been perfectly impossible for me to have put the case in an intelligible manner before the jury. I doubt if much abler men than I pretend to be could have done it either. I do therefore think that it is necessary that the counsel should be retained and employed as they have been retained and will be employed. They have been retained on my responsibility and under my directions. I accepted, with the sanction of the Government, the duty cast upon me by the Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas of prosecuting the prisoner, and that duty I shall endeavour to discharge to the best of my ability so long as I hold my office; and I shall take the steps I think proper for discharging it with success, because I believe it to be a duty in the proper discharge of which the whole of society is deeply interested. With regard to the latter part of the Question, I can only say that there has been a debate already on the subject, and the matter is, I believe, under the consideration of the Government, and that when they have arrived at a decision, it will be stated to the House; but it is a matter with which the Attorney General has no more to do than my hon. Friend himself.