§ The Bishop of St. Asaph rose to make his promised motion relative to this bill. He observed, the small mistake which gave rise to a precipitate reading of the bill a second time on that day fortnight, had prevented those lords who disapproved the measure from delivering their sentiments, or those who petitioned against it from being heard by their counsel at the bar. For his own part, he greatly disapproved of the bill; so much so, that he should presently move that the order for a committee sitting on the bill to-morrow be discharged, in order to follow it up, should he succeed in it, with another motion for committing the bill on that day three months. This he was induced to do, from his objections to the principle of the bill; which, in fact, was totally to repeal the act passed towards the end of last session; an act, which had much time and labour be stowed on it by several of their lordships, in a committee, and in which it was considerably amended and improved; this, the petitioners for the present bill, said, they found from experience; from time experience of not more than half a year, to be insufficient to its purposes, and they now desired its total repeal as the best means to carry its provisions into effect! Who were the persons to be called upon for this? Not the parish of St. Pancras. They were a select body or number of men, who styled themselves the guardians or directors of the poor. The object was to take the administration of such affairs from the vestry at large, the churchwardens, &c. and to vest it in the said select body. The right rev. prelate then went into the history of the original bill which came before their lordships towards the latter end of the session of 1803, and described the powers which the promoters of the bill required should be vested in them. They were to be self 241 elected; they were to assess the rates; all the vacancies were to be filled up by them; they were to produce no vouchers; they were to be their own auditors, &c. All these improper provisions were amended by their lordships. The result was, that the bill, on account of the late period of the session, was lost for that year. The bill of last year, ameliorated and improved, as he had alluded to, followed; and this bill, the parties in question say, is insufficient to its purposes, because it did not give them power enough. The present bill went to do away all the amendments made by their lordships to the last act; in fact, it repealed the original bill, of which, without a meaning to offend the aristocracy of the parish of St. Pancras, he must express his disapprobation. It reminded him of a bill, not long since, and very properly, thrown out by their lordships; the professed object of which was, the improvement of the art and mystery of chimney sweeping—[a laugh]. The object of that measure was, to place more power in the hands of a select body of opulent chimney sweepers. Were the bill under consideration suffered to go to a committee, the long and tedious discussions and hearing of counsel, who would have to argue that black was white and white was black, would be endless; for the worse the cause was, the more subtle should the distinctions necessarily be—[a laugh]. In concluding, his lordship adverted to the late period of the session, and expressed himself decidedly against the farther progress of the bill, and moved, "that the order for the committee to sit on the bill to-morrow, be discharged."
§ The Earl of Suffolk approved of what had fallen from the right rev. prelate, and added, that the bill in question proposed to relieve the poor, upon a principle, that those of the parish of Mary-la-Bonne were better regulated; a position which he must deny; for, in Mary-la-Bonne parish, there were upwards of 40,000l. raised, for the maintenance of 1,013 poor persons; whereas, in the parish of St. Pancras, only 10,500l. were raised for the support of about half the number; there were some other detailed considerations, he observed, to be collected from the report of the other house of parliament, which would lead him to decide against the present bill.
§ The Lord Chancellor, after shortly referring to what had been said by the right rev. prelate, relative to the proceedings on the former bills, and jocularly alluding to 242 what was said on the hearing of counsel, deprecated all hasty decisions on bills of such a nature as the present. He adverted to the scenes of confusion and animosity, and the numerous litigations which resulted from certain popular parochial elections, more especially in large parishes. He argued in favour of the bill's, going to a committee, and adverted to certain legal difficulties, which had arisen with respect to the operation of the existing act. After some further observations from the noble and learned lord, as to the merits of the particular question before them, the house divided on the motion of the bishop of St. Asaph; when there appeared, for that proceeding 7; against it 31; majority for th bill 24.