§ EARL GRANVILLE, in moving the Second Reading of this Bill, said it was quite unnecessary that he should trouble their Lordships with any detail of the horrible cases of assault which constantly met the public eye in the columns of the morning journals, because he believed they were perfectly aware how numerous were the cases of great cruelty, wholly wanton and unprovoked, committed by brutal husbands upon their defenceless wives and children. There was an old jocular proverb which, however absurd and ridiculous it might be, had perhaps not been without its evil effects in its way:—
A woman, a dog, and a walnut tree,The more they are beaten, the better they'll be.However execrable the doctrine might be, the fact was, that the law, as it at present stood, gave greater protection, both to the tree and to the dog, than it did to the unfortunate woman. A person was liable to corporal punishment for cutting a shrub, and might be imprisoned for three months, with or without hard labour, for ill-treating a dog; but in the case of a woman he might be fined 5l., and in default only of that payment might be committed to prison. It was true that the magistrate might send the case to the sessions; but in that event justice was frequently perverted, for there was an amount of restraint and intimidation used against the unfortunate woman, which prevented the prosecution of the indictment. This was an anomalous state of the law, which it was proposed now to amend by the Bill before their Lordships. 552 The Bill give power to two justices of the peace, a police magistrate, or a stipendiary magistrate, to commit persons guilty of aggravated assaults to imprisonment for six months, with or without hard labour, or to a fine of 20l. He felt so confident that their Lordships would not object to the principle of the Bill, that he deemed it unnecessary to say more in presenting it for second reading.
LORD CAMPBELLentirely approved the spirit of the Bill, but observed that the small amount of punishment referred to by his noble Friend was limited to cases in which the magistrate exercised his summary jurisdiction. If the person were indicted for the offence, the sentence of the court upon conviction of a brutal assault might be, not a fine of 5l. merely, or committed in default, but imprisonment with hard labour in the House of Correction for two years. He had no doubt that the Bill would have a very beneficial effect, and he should, therefore, give it his warm support.
§ Bill read 2a.