The Earl of Wicklowwished, before the rising of the House, to call the attention of their Lordships, particularly of his noble Friends, her Majesty's Ministers, to a subject which he considered of much importance. It would be in the recollection of their Lordships that, some time last Session a bill had been passed for abolishing the Punishment of Death in certain cases, but the bill applied to Great Britain and did not extend to Ireland. Now, he considered it a very singular anomaly that there should be one law for the punishment of the same class of crimes in one part of the United Kingdom and another in another, and that what was punished with a milder sentence in one place should be visited with the penalty of death in another. He had felt it his duty to call the attention of the noble Marquess lately at the head of the Home Department to the circumstance, and pointed out to him that as a considerable period must elapse before the act came into operation, there would be time to remove the anomaly before them. The noble Marquess at the time gave him what he considered as a pledge that the Government would take up the matter, but as the noble Marquess having retired from office was not in a condition to fulfil that pledge, he begged to call the attention of his noble Friends the Members 492 of the Government to the subject, and hoped that something would be done in it.
§ The Duke of Wellingtonsaid, that he would lose no time in calling the attention of his right hon. Friend the Secretary for the Home Department to the matter.
§ Adjourned.