Lords Sitting of 19 July 1832

MINUTES.
Bill. Read a third time:—Mangel Worzel Distillation.
Petitions presented. By Lord SUFFIELD, from Yeavely, against Slavery.—By the Earl of RADNOR, from seven Places in Ireland, for the Abolition of Tithes,—By the Earl of FINGALL, from Rathfeigh and Skreen,—in favour of the Ministerial Plan of Education (Ireland).

PARLIAMENTARY REFORM.—BILL FOR IRELAND—FIRST READING.
The Re-

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form of Parliament (Ireland) Bill was brought up from the Commons by Mr. Crampton and others; and read a first time, to be printed.
Viscount Melbournemoved that the Bill be read a second time on Monday next.
The Duke of Cumberlandsuggested to the noble Viscount, that the second reading should be deferred beyond that period, as several Irish Peers who desired to deliver their opinions on the Bill were absent and could not have notice in sufficient time.
Earl Greythought that the time was sufficient for every requisite notice. The Bill might be printed and circulated by Monday, and if it were not, the second reading might be then postponed.
The second reading fixed for Monday.

TONNAGE DUTIES, ENGLAND AND FRANCE.
Viscount Strangford,seeing the noble President of the Board of Trade in his place, was desirous to make some observations on the arrangement which had been made with the French Government on the subject of the reciprocal tonnage duties of both countries, and to obtain some information from the noble Lord respecting that arrangement. He was glad that the arrangement had been at length effected, although the progress to its conclusion had been so very tardy. Still he believed, that the British shipowners would feel extremely obliged to the noble Lord for the arrangement, although it was not altogether satisfactory. The reduction in the duties payable by British vessels in the French ports was not so great as we were entitled to; and then it was worthy of consideration, that owing to the delay which had taken place in coming to a final arrangement, British vessels had been obliged to pay 200,000 l. in the ports of France more than they would have done if the arrangements had been promptly concluded. The French in our ports paid only 7d. or 8d. per ton, which was only about one half of what we paid in the French ports, and this, too, with a treaty of reciprocity staring us in the face. He admitted that the reduction of the duties payable by British vessels in French ports to 1s. 3d, per ton was a very great advantage, and yet the payment by us of 50 per cent more than the French paid was rather too much. The French, too, had a great advantage from our light-houses on the coast; and this was a benefit which British ships had not on the French coast. He was not, however, disposed to quarrel with the arrangement,
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if we had value for our money. But from Ushant, on the French coast, to 120 miles distant, there was not a single light, though the coast was for seamen an extremely dangerous one, perhaps as dangerous a one as was to be found, and a great many British ships had been consequently wrecked. He had a letter from a gentleman who had resided for a short time at Morlaix, and he said that during that time thirteen British ships had been wrecked on that coast. The French paid for nothing for which they did not receive a full equivalent advantage, while our payments were a pure tax. The arrangement, however, was, on the whole, a great benefit to British shipping; but he wished for some explanation from the noble Lord as to the particulars which he had mentioned, and in which it did not appear that the British had a reciprocal or equal advantage.
Lord Aucklandwas willing to give the noble Lord all the information in his power. There was no tardiness whatever on the part of France in concluding the arrangement, and the delay had arisen only from unavoidable obstacles. The French Government had throughout met him with perfect frankness, and apparently with every disposition to make an arrangement with this country on terms of reciprocity. The delay had been occasioned by the necessity which existed of procuring information from various Consuls and other persons, and by some other causes. The principle upon which they had proceeded in making the arrangement was, that the duties payable by British vessels in the French ports should be reduced to an equality with the duties payable by French vessels in the British ports; but the difficulty was to settle the precise amount of payments, which, all things considered, would constitute that equality. Certainly the British did not pay fifty per cent more than the French. The payments were placed as nearly as possible on the footing of equality. The charges in all the French ports were uniformly 3s. 6d. per ton, while in every one of the British ports the amount of duties varied, as they were dependent on the charters of each of the corporations. An average, therefore, had been taken of the duties payable by French vessels at the ports of London, Liverpool, Dover, and the other ports where French vessels had been in the habit of entering for the last four years, and that average was the rule adopted. The duties payable by vessels from Cherbourg to Portsmouth varied considerably

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from those payable by vessels from Cherbourg to Liverpool, and it had become absolutely necessary to strike an average. The result was, that French vessels were to pay 10 d. per ton; but it was remarked on the part of the French, that the French charged by one measure, and that we charged by another; and that, in order to produce the proper equality, it was necessary that British vessels should pay 1s. 3d. per ton. To this we demurred, and the arrangement as to this payment was only provisional, and the French Government was ready to alter it, if we could make out that the payment was too much. But from the calculations that he had made, and the information he had collected, he was rather disposed to think that the French calculation was correct. With respect to light-houses on the French coast, French commerce was concerned on that point as much as the British, and we had no right to make any demands in that respect. No complaint for want of lights had, however, reached him, otherwise they would have been attended to.
Viscount Strangfordproposed to move for an account of British vessels wrecked on the part of the French coast alluded to, within a given period but on Earl Grey intimating that there was no means of making such a return, the motion was withdrawn.

SCHOOLS OF ANATOMY.
Lord Mintomoved the third reading of the Bill for regulating Schools of Anatomy.
Lord Wynfordopposed the Motion. The Bill was altogether so objectionable that he had despaired from the beginning of its being amended so as to render it fit for passing into a law. He had been ready to propose a plan which would be free from objection, and which he understood from a high medical authority would completely answer the purpose. Under the present Bill, servants might sell the bodies of their masters, landlords the bodies of their lodgers, and people in the poor-houses and work-houses might dispose of the bodies of persons dying there as they pleased. He would move as an amendment, that the Bill be read a third time this day six months.
Lord Teynhamagreed with the learned Lord, and was confident that the feelings of the people were more averse from the present Bill than from any parliamentary measure of late years. The inevitable result would be to demoralize and brutalise
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the people, and to convert every workhouse-keeper into a systematic trafficker in dead bodies. Neither would it answer its end as a means towards facilitating the study of anatomy.
The Earl of Mintosaid, that two facts which noble Lords could not deny, went to demonstrate the weakness of their objections—namely, the fact that the demands of medical science in this country, owing to the legislative prohibitions against providing for that demand, raised the price of the dead body so high, that the price became a desperate temptation to murder and next, the fact that the principle of the Bill had been tried on the Continent and in America, and had been found eminently successful in putting an end to all illegal traffic in human subjects, while the science of anatomy was carefully studied. The question simply resolved itself into this:—was anatomy—that is, the dissection of the dead body—essential to the prosecution of medical science? If it was, then the question was, how dissection could be most facilitated without injury to the feelings of the people? And the answer which experience furnished was, to hand over the bodies of unclaimed persons—that is, of persons dying in hospitals and workhouses, without kindred or friends—to medical gentlemen responsible for the manner in which they should perform their duties. By the law as it stood, a surgeon was punishable for an unskilful exercise of his art; and yet the same law punished him if he attempted to acquire the means of becoming skilful,—that is, punished him for dissecting a dead body. Again, owing to this state of the law, the price of the dead body became so high, that atrocious murders were had recourse to, in order to grasp this enormous booty; the Bill would remove the motive to the crime by doing away with the temptation. But then it was said that it would exclusively apply to the poor. In answer, he would ask, whom would the general improvement of medical men most benefit? Was it not the poor, who could not command, like the rich, the services of the more accomplished physician? Again, whose graves were most exposed to the ravages of the resurrection men Certainly the graves of the poor? And was it not proved in evidence before the Commons' committee, that so frequent was the practice of stealing the bodies of the poor, that one policeman alone detected 100 such robberies? Then, the highest and most humane members of the most humane and en-

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lightened of professions—that of medicine—approved of the Bill.
The Earl of Harewoodmust oppose the Bill on the ground that it legalised the giving up the dead bodies of the poor for dissection—that this was disguised under the term examination—and that the burial service was most indecently slurred over. He had no objection to the supplying of bodies for the great anatomical schools; but by this Bill private individuals might dissect as many as they pleased. It was at a great anatomical school that the late atrocious murders had been detected. If the body of the Italian boy had been taken to a private dissecting room, it was not likely that such a discovery would have taken place. The Bill involved a principle which he detested, and that was the demoralizing the people.
The House divided on the question, that the Bill be now read a third time—Contents 29; Not Contents 9—Majority 20.
The Lord Chancellorproposed several verbal amendments—agreed to.
Lord Wynfordwished to omit that part of the Bill by which it was provided that persons convicted of murder should not be dissected. He contended that it was well known that the fear of dissection operated powerfully to deter from the commission of sanguinary crimes.
Earl Greysaid, he should be sorry to do away with any portion of the effective punishment of murder, without providing an adequate substitute for what was proposed to be repealed. Granting that the dread of dissection might operate advantageously on the minds of individuals meditating great crimes, unfortunately it was also true that the circumstance of making dissection a part of the punishment of murder, tended to perpetuate and increase the prejudices against anatomical examinations generally. The object of this bill was to promote the interests of science, and it was thought that it would be advantageous (with that view) to do away with the dissection of murderers. At the same time, in order to distinguish murder from other crimes, and for the purpose of avoiding the possibility of lessening the moral horror of the offence, he had no objection to propose a clause enacting that murderers should be buried at the foot of the gallows and without Christian rites.
Lord Kenyonwas fully persuaded that there existed great horror at the idea of being exposed and subjected to dissection, and that the abolition of dissection, in cases
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of murder, would not in the slightest degree diminish that horror.
Lord Hollandsaid, if that feeling were now general, he must be permitted to observe, that the world must formerly have been much more republican than at present, since formerly the universal practice was, to subject the bodies of all Sovereign Princes to dissection. [Lord Kenyon.—They were always embalmed.] Actually dissected. He remembered reading a very accurate and minute account of the dissection of Louis XVIII.
Earl Greymoved a clause to the effect that the bodies of all prisoners convicted of murder should either be hung in chains, or buried under the gallows on which they had been executed, or within the precincts of the prison in which such prisoner had been confined, according to the discretion of the court before whom the prisoner might be tried, and that such addition be stated at the time of pronouncing sentence.
Clause agreed to, and bill read a third time and passed.