Lords Sitting of 23 March 1855

Preamble
MESSAGE FROM THE QUEEN—MILITARY CONVENTION WITH SARDINIA.
Message from THE QUEEN delivered by The Lord President, and read by the Lord Chancellor, as follows—
"VICTORIA R.
"Her Majesty thinks it right to acquaint the House of Lords, that She has concluded, in concert with His Majesty The Emperor of the French, a Military Convention with His Majesty The King of Sardinia, whereby His Majesty The King of Sardinia engages to furnish and keep up for the Requirements of the present War a Body of Fifteen thousand Men, organised as is therein stipu-
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lated; and with a View to facilitate the Execution of the said Military Convention, Her Majesty has, by a supplementary Convention, concluded with His Majesty The King of Sardinia, undertaken to recommend to Her Parliament to enable Her to advance, by way of Loan to His Majesty The King of Sardinia, the Sum of One Million Pounds Sterling, of which Sum Five hundred thousand Pounds Sterling shall be paid by Her Majesty as soon as possible after the Assent of Her Parliament shall have been given thereto, and the remaining Five hundred thousand Pounds at the Expiration of Six Months after Payment of the first Sum:
"Her Majesty has further engaged to recommend to Her Parliament, to enable Her, if the War should not have been brought to a close at the Expiration of Twelve Months after Payment of the first Instalment of the above-mentioned Loan, to advance to His Majesty The King of Sardinia in the same Proportions a like Sum of One Million of Pounds Sterling:
"The Government of His Majesty The King of Sardinia undertakes to pay Interest on such Loan or Loans at the Rate of Four per Cent per Annum, of which One per Cent per Annum shall be for a sinking Fund; the said Interest to be calculated and payable in the Manner in the said Convention stipulated:
"Her Majesty had directed a Copy of these Conventions to be laid before the House of Lords; and She relies on the Zeal and public Spirit of the House of Lords to concur in enabling Her to make good the Engagements which She has contracted with Her Ally:
"V.R."
Ordered—That the said Message be taken into Consideration on Monday next.

THE MILITIA.
THE EARL OF MALMESBURYsaid, he wished to ask the noble Lord the Secretary for War whether he had received any opinion from the law officers of the Crown with respect to a point which had been discussed in the House the other night—namely, whether militiamen enlisted under the Act of 1852 were legally bound to serve under the Act of 1854, under which the militia was to be embodied for five years, although they had not been re-attested under the latter Bill?
LORD PANMURE: In reply to the question of the noble Earl, I beg to state that since the discussion took place in this House with reference to the militia, I have learned by experience how dangerous it is to discuss in this House matters affecting

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the rights of soldiers, which may be the means of exciting in their minds an unwarranted impression with respect to the rights which they can fairly claim. Now, that has been the case in the present instance, and very great inconvenience has thus arisen; inasmuch as, immediately after the debate in this House was made public, the soldiers in several militia regiments—whether acting on their own views of the matter, or whether on the suggestions of others, I cannot say—but the soldiers of several militia regiments absolutely declined, on being called out, to serve any further, and, in fact, laid down their arms; and many of them refused to be obedient to discipline any longer. I must, however, do those men the justice to add, that immediately on remonstrances being addressed to them by their commanding officers, and the impropriety of the course they had taken being pointed out to them, they resumed their duties, and agreed to wait for further instructions from the Government. I never had any doubt myself that, as the law stands, no militiaman who was enrolled under the Act of 1852 had any claim whatever to be exempted from the embodied service required by the Act of 1854; and I have been assured by the highest legal authority which it was in my power to consult, that every militiaman now serving under the Act of 1854, whether enrolled in 1852 or in 1853, or subsequently to the passing of the Act of 1854, is legally compellable by law to serve in the embodied militia. That is, distinctly and unequivocally, the effect of the law as it now stands. But there is another point which was mooted the other night for our consideration. It was stated that when the Act of 1854 was passed by Parliament, a pledge was given and an understanding come to that the men who had been enrolled in 1852 were to have the option of being attested or not for service under that Act. Now, if any such engagement was entered into, I am one of those who think that, whether it was right or wrong, prudent or imprudent, that should it have been contracted on the part of the Government with the soldier, it ought to be religiously observed. It is my duty, therefore, when the men of the militia obey their commanding officers, and submit to the law as it stands, to ascertain how far that engagement has been made, and to keep it on the part of Her Majesty's Government.
THE EARL OF MALMESBURYsaid, he entirely agreed with the noble Lord in the
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abstract principle that it was inconvenient to have discussions in that House affecting the discipline of our soldiers. But he could not regret that this subject had been brought under their notice last year and upon a recent occasion; because the first object of every one must be to see that justice should be done to the soldiers of this country, and that any point upon which doubts existed should be clearly ascertained. It now appeared, from the opinion given by the law advisers of the Crown, that the men enrolled in 1852 and 1853 were legally bound to serve in the embodied militia. Those men must, therefore, clearly understand what their duty was, and would, he believed, faithfully discharge it; and he was on that account heartily glad that the discussion of this question had been raised.
LORD PANMUREsaid, he ought to state that he had ordered a circular to be addressed to the colonels of militia regiments and the lords lieutenant of counties, requesting them to make known to the men of those regiments the facts of the case as he had just explained them.
EARL GREYagreed with the noble Earl (the Earl of Malmesbury) that great advantages had followed from the public discussion of this question, for nothing was more calculated to injure the militia and the army than the impression that justice and good faith had not been observed towards them. In this case there was no doubt as to what good faith and justice required. The militiamen in question had been enrolled under particular Acts of Parliament, and they had a right to think that their obligation to serve was strictly limited by those Acts; yet, without their consent, another Act of Parliament had been passed, altering the terms of their agreement. He took objection at the time to the obvious injustice of the proceeding; and he was distinctly told in answer that any injustice would be remedied, because no man who had been enrolled under the former law would be required to incur more onerous obligations than he had formerly taken upon himself. He thought there had been great negligence on the part of the Government of that day in not doing what the noble Lord had now done; for they ought to have issued a circular to lords lieutenant and colonels of militia regiments, informing them that the men could not be called upon to serve without their consent beyond what they had agreed to. What had oc-

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curred would, he hoped, be a caution to their Lordships, and to the other House of Parliament, never to consent to an Act of Parliament under which injustice might be done to the troops, from any assurance on the part of the Government that that power should not be abused, and to take care that in cases like the present a clause should be put in to prevent the Act from being retrospective. This was the moral to be drawn from the former discussion, and not that it had been inconvenient to the public service.
LORD BROUGHAMwas rejoiced that this matter had been set right, and had only one word to add to the proposition of the noble Earl (Earl Grey). He wished to make it more general, and to say that, not only should no act of Parliament be passed on the understanding that some other Act should be afterwards passed, in which the military were concerned, but that this should be the general rule in legislative proceedings.
LORD BATEMANsaid, before this matter was closed, he wished to put a question to the Secretary for War. He wished to know if by chance any man in a regiment resisted being re-attested, he was liable to be retained in the service.
LORD PANMUREsaid, that if the regiment was embodied by the law as it stood, every man was compelled to serve.
EARL GREYsaid, if he understood the noble Lord (Lord Panmure) he had given an engagement that the men enlisted before 1854 might be relieved from a greater service than that for which they had voluntarily enlisted.
LORD PANMURE: I said that all engagements made with the militiamen enlisted in 1852 would be religiously kept.
EARL GREYwas sorry he had misunderstood his noble Friend. His belief was that no man under the Act of 1852 could be required to serve more than fifty-six days in the year, except in case of invasion, and the colonels had got many of them to volunteer on the faith of that pledge. He stated when the Act of 1854 was brought in that it was unjust to alter the terms of the engagements of those men who had voluntarily enlisted; but he was assured that the power would not be used, and he withdrew his opposition to the Bill. He now regretted that he had not pressed the insertion of a clause providing that no man enlisted under the Act of 1852 should be called on to perform any other service than that which they had then voluntarily un-
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dertaken. He begged now to ask his noble Friend whether or not he had made it known that any man who had been enrolled under the first Act, if unwilling to renew his engagement of service, should have his discharge or leave of absence, so that no greater amount of service should be extorted from him than such as he had voluntarily engaged to perform.
LORD PANMUREsaid, that he had stated that he would adopt whatever means seemed to him right to keep faith with the militiamen, but he did not say whether it should be by leave of absence or discharge. He had said distinctly that he would keep faith with the men, and that he would not require from them more service than they had engaged to perform; but with reference to the exact means to be adopted, he must refrain from stating them. He pledged himself to keep faith with the men.

CRIMINAL LAW PROCEDURE—RESOLU TIONS.
LORD BROUGHAM:* My Lords, I rise according to my notice to bring before your Lordships the Criminal Procedure of this Country by the Law and Practice of England. The subject is of great extent, and of vast importance; and if it was of equal difficulty, unable to grapple with it, I should shrink from handling it; but unhappily the defects of the system are so obvious, lying so near the surface, and in their consequences so widely felt, that their description is easy, though I must confess that for some of them at least it may be hard to find a remedy free from all objection. Until, however, we have carefully examined the whole, it would be rash to pronounce that in any case, the evils complained of are remediless; and that the more grievous defects can be removed seems unquestionable. I proceed then, at once, to deal with the whole subject in the order described when I gave my notice a fortnight ago.
And first of all, and in the outset, I will say that I confine myself to procedure, leaving untouched the defects in the Criminal Law itself, and only asking you to consider the manner in which, as at present established, it is administered or carried into execution; although I must own that one's forbearance is taxed a little high in thus passing by defects so glaring, as every day's experience exemplifies; defects too, which trench so nearly upon procedure, that it is difficult to keep the discussion of them apart from my present

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subject. Thus to say nothing of such grave offences as formed the subject matter of my learned Friend Mr. Bowyer's Bill last Session, approved as regards its principle by the Lord Chief Justice—acts morally criminal, but only in law treated as civil injuries—what shall be said of those gross cases of fraud, and those scandalous instances of breach of trust so frequently brought before our courts, but only the courts of civil jurisdiction—such cases as we tried on appeal from Ireland in this House on a somewhat remarkable day, the morning after the Reform Bill was rejected, October 1831, when with Lord Plunket and Lord Radnor, I sat to hear the story of a fraud as gross as ever was perpetrated, by which a reverend gentleman was deprived of a large fortune, and the perpetrator of the crime removed its fruits beyond our jurisdiction, so that the injured party has never yet been able to recover the property adjudged to be his by our clear and unhesitating decision,—or such a case, if possible more flagrant, as I grieve to say, a not undistinguished member of our profession exhibited, when guardian of two orphans, he spent the whole of their patrimony in riotous living, and dying insolvent, left these two female wards upon the parish?—These are surely crimes of the blackest dye, and yet in law they are only regarded as constituting debts for which the party may sue if he can, but which the public has no right to complain of, or the magistrate to punish. Such cases approach the boundary which separates the Criminal Law from Criminal Procedure, and they affect our feelings of justice strongly; but make an effort, and abstain from dealing with them, that I may bring my observations within narrower bounds; and I therefore come to the first stage of procedure—the ascertaining of the offence and the securing of the offender, in order to his trial; in a word the department of police—to which I begin with asking your Lordships' attention.
The first object that meets our eye it this survey is the court of the police, especially the metropolitan police magistrate because the name seems to connect it with the subject. It is, however, a great misnomer. It has been remarked by one o the able and learned persons who preside at these courts, that this reminds us of Voltaire's remark on the name, Holy Roman Empire, which is neither holy, no Roman, nor Empire. So these functionaries are not metropolitan, because they are
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expressly shut out from all jurisdiction in the City of London; they are not police, for they have nothing to do with police, except, indeed, to stand between the community and any policeman who may abuse their powers, as they protect against any other wrong-doers; and they are not magistrates, properly speaking, because that means an unpaid justice, and these gentlemen are all stipendiary. True, this is only a question of a name, but words oftentimes have the force of things, and I object to this false appellation given by common parlance, as I do to the equally false name of Small Debt Courts, given by the Statutes to our local judicatures. I object in both instances to a misnomer which tends to lower in public stimation a most important tribunal. It would be difficult to estimate too highly the value of these Criminal Courts. Beside many branches of jurisdiction, as in revenue cases, and some in civil matters, they have the power of summary conviction in a large class of cases connected with violence; but their principal function is that of preparatory inquiry, of examining the evidence to support charges brought before them; and this they do according to the strict rules of evidence, which the Coroner is not bound by, because he is to ascertain not only the corpus delicti, that the offence has been committed, but who is probably the offender; and hence I may observe in passing, two evils connected with this important officer's proceedings: first, that they are in public, as well as behind the backs of those suspected; and next, that there is no power of holding to bail when a warrant is executed. The police magistrate, on the other hand, does always, as the committing magistrate everywhere ought to do, guide himself by the rules of evidence, and also examines any witnesses whom the person charged may bring forward in his own behalf. In short, it is a much more satisfactory inquiry in all respects than that before a grand jury. Some defects there are. It appears to me that since the County Courts have been established, from all the civil jurisdiction, as in ejectments and other cases of small amount, the Police Courts should f be relieved, by this jurisdiction being transferred, or rather confined, to the County Courts, for it is concurrent; but confined it cannot now be, in consequence of the greater expense of proceedings in those courts, arising almost entirely from the taxes still levied on them against all prin-

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ciple. This it is that drives much business of a civil description into the police courts. Another defect arises from the power to discharge upon the party's own recognisance, without bail being confined, when our Petty Offence Bill shall pass, to the small felonies within its provisions; whereas it should be given generally, wherever the magistrate can take bail, and should be given to the Coroner in cases of manslaughter. There is no risk whatever attending the extension of this discretion. It would only be exercised in the instance of poor people unable to find bail; and they are not at all prone to fly. The offence must be of a grave nature to make them choose perpetual exile rather than stand their trial; exile, which among our northern neighbours, is a punishment of many offences on conviction; sometimes banishment from the realm, but sometimes also from the burgh or county only. A poor man's whole scheme of life is deranged by it, and his means of livelihood destroyed, even if he has the power of transferring his family, and if the loss of his country cannot affect him. It accordingly appears that the instances are exceedingly rare of persons escaping to avoid trial. Professional friends, and others conversant with police proceedings, have assured me, that such a thing hardly ever happens, where the offence is not grave, but of such nature that the discretion would be used for which I contend, as avoiding the necessity of unnecessary imprisonment, with all its evils, both to the family of the party, to his own habits, and to his character, from the contamination of the gaol. One great benefit of these magistrates arises, not from their control over the police, but from their standing, as it were, between the lower orders and that force. Useful as is our metropolitan police, and meritorious as its members very generally are, there can be no doubt that occasions sometimes arise, when authority to be exercised with a somewhat large discretion, and exercised at all hours, and in all seasons, may be abused. But the speedy recourse which is required to the magistrate, and the expectation of his interference, tends greatly to prevent this abuse. That the number of stipendiary magistrates should be increased, seems to follow from all we are considering in their praise. Far be it from me to undervalue the services of the unpaid justices, especially in country districts and small towns. But surely there ought to be in all the
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larger towns a sufficient number of such magistrates as are found necessary in Middlesex and the adjacent districts, and for the very same reasons on which that necessity is founded, and is admitted.—There are at present not above seven or eight; and in Middlesex twenty-three, holding eleven courts.
But the establishment of a regular police everywhere is now allowed by all to be of absolute necessity; and I believe I only speak the sense of all your Lordships when I express my great regret that the Bill last year introduced by my noble Friend now at the head of the Government, and then? Home Secretary, was not suffered to pass. As to some of its provisions doubts might reasonably be entertained; but its principle has received the assent of all who have carefully considered the subject, and who are alive to the incalculable importance of having such a constabulary force for the county districts, and smaller towns as may suffice to keep the peace, to awe offenders, to prevent them from pursuing their evil courses, and to secure their being brought to justice. My noble Friend deserved the greatest praise for his exertions in preparing that measure, and he was only defeated by the clamours which the corporate bodies raised—clamours in which unincorporated towns joined, though they must have seen, as they were at the time plainly told and as I doubt not they have since experienced, that their bounds, unprotected by police, would assuredly become the refuge of malefactors from all parts where a police force existed. A regular force is absolutely necessary; but it appears to me equally expedient that there should also be a reserve force, of persons who do not quit their occupations, but only receive a certain moderate pay as a retainer, obliging them to muster a few days yearly for inspection and training, and liable in all emergencies to be called out. I say nothing of the great service which the recruiting of the army may derive from this force bearing to the regular constabulary the same relation that the local militia does to the regular; but its use in police service is incontestable. It would not only separate the disreputable classes from the bettermost folks, and thus restrain the former, but it would render riotous proceedings and other like outrages impossible, and would prevent such evils as we have lately seen to arise from the combinations called strikes,

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the source of such danger to the public peace; such loss to the manufacturing interest; above all, such cruel suffering to the labouring classes themselves; the dupes and tools of sordid agitators seeking their own power, and their own profit at the cost of the poor working men and their families. The illustrious man, whom we unhappily no longer have among us, was, I have reason to think, both from what passed in private and from some observations made in this House, much in favour of some such arrangement. My noble friends opposite, before they quitted office in 1852, had, I believe, nearly matured a plan of a kindred sort, for a reserve naval force. It has been strongly recommended by my Friend Mr. F. Hill, whose long services as prison inspector, have brought him much in communication with the police authorities in different parts, both of Scotland and England. In his admirable work on Crimes, he dwells much upon the subject, and shows incontestably how useful such a force would prove both in peace and war.
I cannot quit the subject of police without observing how important it is that there should be a uniform system of rules and regulations for that force all over the country. This principle appears to have received Legislative sanction; for in 1851 an Act was passed having this object principally in view, the 14 & 15 Vict. c. 55, which empowers the Secretary of State to make rules generally applicable for the payment of police expenses, compensations and rewards on detecting offences. It takes the power of making regulations from the Sessions, manifestly in order to secure the uniformity of the rules. It is a pity that beside empowering, the Act did not require the making of such rules by the Secretary of State; for though four years have elapsed, nothing has been done. I trust no further delay will occur, and I also venture to express a hope that another and similar provision of the same statute will be executed by the Quarter Sessions, the payment of the clerks of the peace by salary and not by fees. This power has in only one or two instances been exercised, and yet its existence is of absolute necessity. The taking of fees is attended with great irregularity and proportionate abuse. The difference in various counties is hardly to be believed. Thus taking the sum of the different fees to the clerk on commitment, fine, acquittal; we have for Durham, 3l., Dorset, 4l. 10 s., Essex, 2l. 4s.; Havering
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atte Bower (a manor well known for its very peculiar customs, one of which is the right claimed by the Lord to appoint Justices) no less than 6l. 13 s.; in the same manor the clerk has 3l. 10 s. 10 d. for an acquittal, while in Derbyshire only 1l. is paid—a difference of between three and fourfold. Such a fee, indeed, ought not to exist at all any where or to any amount. [Lord LYNDHURST: Clearly not!] But I am now only speaking of the great diversity in different counties of the fee for the same matter. It is certain that in some places the amount of fees received is 1,500 l. a year; in some more, even above 2,000 l.; but it is undeniable that in all cases the payment should be by salary, as the Act plainly intended it should, though the local authorities have thought fit to decide otherwise. Another power given them has been equally disregarded though coupled with a very plain indication of the Legislature's intention, I mean that of choosing for the exercise of their criminal jurisdiction the county court judge as the chairman of Sessions. In Ireland, the assistant barrister is universally so chosen by the magistrates; in England, there have been only one or two instances of it. I am quite sure that, in some cases, as I lately stated in this place, there cannot be more competent chairmen than the Sessions enjoy, such as my late Friend Lord Wharncliffe, in the West Riding, and my right hon. Friend (Sir J. Pakington), in Worcestershire. But, though it would be invidious to notice counties that do not possess the same great advantage, I believe it is the very general opinion both of the bar and of the community, that it would be highly beneficial to the administration of criminal justice, if the suggestion were oftener attended to which the county courts Acts have given; both the Bills that did not pass and the one that did, making the Judge qualified as a justice by virtue of his office. No one probably would wish to interfere with the chice of the Sessions, or to transfer their jurisdiction to another tribunal. But surely the justices ought to consider it as a relief if they can so easily obtain the aid of a learned and experienced person, one bred as a lawyer, and practised also in the performance of judicial duties. The prevention of mistakes would be one result of their taking the course in question; but it would be another advantage that the disputes of the bench with the bar would be wholly avoided, and the profession satisfied in all

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counties, as they have been in those of York and Worcester.
But I pass on to the other parts of this extensive subject after the commencement of procedure, with which I have hitherto been dealing. The offence having been traced, the offender or supposed offender tracked, and his person secured, proceedings must be taken for bringing him to trial. And here, if indeed we have not already in regard to the proceedings before commitment—at least, here we at once experience one of the greatest, if not the greatest defect of our system, the want of power in the executive government to provide for the execution of the law by putting the criminal procedure in motion. I believe, with the exception of America, if our kinsmen have carried over with them this fault in the English law, but certainly in no other country, is the criminal procedure left to shift for itself, its execution being everybody's business in theory, and so nobody's in fact. Rather than argue upon the evils that must inevitably ensue from the want of a public prosecutor, I will give some instances, and these by no means of rare occurrence, though those which I shall specify are more than ordinarily startling; I will give two of the guilty escaping; as many of the innocent being harassed in consequence, and altogether in consequence, of this defect. In the first class, let me mention that a wealthy tradesman at Plymouth, under the pressure of a temporary difficulty, forged a Bill for a large sum, expecting as such culprits generally do, that before it became due, he should be able to retire it; he was disappointed, and arrested. some one was bound over to prosecute, that is, to give evidence; a true Bill was found, indeed there was not the shadow of a doubt in the case; and the trial came on; but no witness appeared. A poor man in these circumstances would have been certainly convicted, and as the law then stood, hanged. The rich man paid the 200 l. on the recognisance, kept the witness out of the way, and was acquitted for want of a prosecutor. Again, a baronet in one of the midland counties, worthy baronet I cannot term him, fired a loaded musket at a rev. clergyman with whom he had some quarrel arising from bad neighbourship. The intercession of friends, or the kindness of his own nature withheld him from appearing, and the wrong-doer, who had really committed a capital felony, escaped unscathed; for by some other error, the
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crime was laid as a misdemeanor, and he was not even imprisoned a day. He was safe until he should make another murderous assault. But now see how also the innocent are harassed with imprisonment and prosecution. To say nothing of the case, lately stated to your Lordships, of the poor woman confined in Northampton gaol for some months upon a charge of manslaughter found to be utterly groundless as soon as the bill was preferred, the same learned Judge (Mr. Baron Alderson) not long ago presided at the Central Criminal Court, when the grand jury brought in a Bill for forgery of a will, a bill preferred by a disappointed legatee against the executor. There was an end of the case the instant the Judge saw the will, which the grand jury had never even desired to see when they put the party on his trial. But I recollect being counsel, one of the last times I ever attended the criminal court, for a gentleman of great property, and high respectability, a man of 10,000 l. or 12,000 l. a-year, who stood in the dock, and was arraigned for wilful murder, because the grand jury sagaciously deemed him criminally accountable for the neglect of one of his bailiffs, who had thrown a rope across a road that was under repair, and forgot to put a lantern upon it, so that unfortunately a woman coming from market was thrown from her cart and broke her neck. The instant that Mr. Baron Wood heard the case opened he directed an acquittal of course, and desired the officer of the court to summon the grand jury into his presence. They were discharged; and his Lordship said, "I am extremely sorry for it; this is a most shameful case." The jury were not even rebuked; but, had they been so, the censure would have fallen exceedingly light, because no one could possibly tell which of them had agreed in finding the bill. Here, however, was this respectable man, who had held up an arraigned hand in the dock with felons, and who went down to the grave with the stigma, which any spiteful neighbour, or adversary at an election, or in the heat of religions controversy, (for he was a Roman Catholic) could fling in his teeth that he had once stood his trial for murder. I will venture most confidently to affirm, that even in the most bitter state of parties, even in the most violent times of faction, no public prosecutor would have dared to put Mr. Blundell upon his trial for the carelessness of his servant. I am old enough, unhappily, to recollect, the

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violence of party at its height, the violence of principles exasperated by alarm, the proverbially fatal combination of anger and fear. I remember the sedition trials of 1793 in Scotland, at Edinburgh and Dundee, the treason trials of 1794 at the Old Bailey; but I will most confidently assert that neither the Lord Advocate in the one country, nor any known individual minister in the other would have, I will not say dared—but would ever have dreamt—of prosecuting the Lancashire Catholic. The grand jury may have felt the same anger and the same alarm, but they could safely give way to its impulse; their whole proceedings were shrouded in darkness; they were, to all intents and purposes, a concealed, an unknown, an absolutely irresponsible prosecutor. Had I argued by the hour to show the evils, the grievous mischiefs of our defective system, I could never have hoped to prove more effectually than the recital of these instances have enabled me to do, how little security that system affords on the one hand of the law being executed against the guilty, how little safeguard on the other against its being grossly abused to the injury of the innocent. Such instances may be rare; but they should be impossible. Their bare possibility at once condemns the system.
In truth, this plan of leaving the execution of the laws to the party injured alone—for I object not to it, if combined with a responsible functionary—comes down to us from very ancient and very barbarous times. It grew out of the irrational laws and customs of the dark ages. It is the relic of days when the great body of the people were held in property as slaves by a few landowners; when one class of the community was privileged from capital punishment because capable of reading; when men were tried not by the evidence of witnesses, but by the belief of their adherents, ignorant of the whole matter, or by their own skill and courage in single combat; nay, when trial by jury had not yet superseded the ordeal of fire and water. In those dismal times, all crimes could be compounded by the payment of a sum of money, or a number of beasts while money was not yet known; every man's head being valued at a certain price—his Weregeld, as the Saxon called it, his Eric, as the Celt had it—from the sovereign down to the peasant. Nothing was deemed to deserve consideration but the estimated loss of the injured party or his family; and the public interest in the peace being
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preserved, and crimes prevented, never entered into any one's contemplation. Assuredly, if the practice loses itself in the mists of remote antiquity, it cannot be deemed to claim our respect from its honourable descent. But let us see how it works; how far prosecutions by a competent and a responsible officer are more likely to be carefully conducted, and to ensure conviction, than when left to any one that chooses to undertake them, and to the majority of the grand jury, unknown and irresponsible. In Scotland the Lord Advocate is at the head of the procedure for executing the criminal law; he has his deputies on the several circuits, and there is a local prosecutor, the Procurator Fiscal (deriving his name, I suppose, from advocatus fisci of the civil law) and acting in each county and each large town. Now look at the results of the two systems, as shown in the escape of the guilty, or at least in the comparative numbers of acquittals. I take the returns for the year 1853 as the last we have; but there is no material difference in the proportions of other years. The number of commitments for England and Wales was 27,057; of persons tried, 25,58,5, there having been 1,472 discharged. Of those tried, 4,793 were acquitted, including those against whom the grand jury threw out the bills; that is to say, the acquittals were between one-fifth or one-sixth of those tried. In Scotland, for the same year, the commitments were 3,756, the persons tried 3,139, the acquittals 279, or between one-eleventh and one-twelfth. Thus the acquittals are twice as numerous in England; clearly showing the difference between proceedings instituted and conducted by experienced, responsible, professional men, and those left to private individuals.
No one wishes, I believe, to see grand juries dispensed with, although in many cases they might safely be, were there in every case a public prosecutor. Of grand juries we have the praises of that extensive dealer in panegyric, Mr. Justice Blackstone, who extols the "excellent forecast of our ancestors," in providing this additional safeguard for the people against the oppression of the Crown; and certainly, as to prosecutions for political offences, there is the greatest reason to coincide with the opinion of the learned commentator. It must, however, be admitted, that even in the case of political offences, the prevalence of party feeling in troublous times is too likely to warp the grand jury, while

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the official prosecutor, though under the same influence, is also under the check of responsibility, to which the unknown majority of the grand jury is never subject. In the times of excitement and alarm to which I have already referred, I believe I may assert that a grand jury would have been quite as ready to find bills for sedition and treason as the Lord Advocate in Scotland to prosecute; and the Attorney General in England found no difficulty in having the bills found, which led to the famous acquittals at the Old Bailey. But the "excellent forecast" which Blackstone praises was somewhat deficient in discrimination when it left all offences whatever subject to the same most imperfect and unsatisfactory inquiry, and provided no means of securing either soundness of principle or uniformity of practice. Not only is the investigation wholly ex-parte, and the tribunal entirely at the mercy of the person preferring the bill, producing whatever witnesses he pleases, and withholding what he desires to conceal, thus making the jury a mere tool in his hands—but the body is of a different construction in different places, local Acts of Parliament in some counties, as Yorkshire, requiring that only freeholders shall serve. The practice also varies. Of course we know not with any particularity what passes within the grand jury room; but from time to time, without any breach of the oath of secrecy, the fact pierces to the public that extreme latitude has been given to the stories of witnesses, and strange notions of evidence have prevailed. Thus it appeared before the learned Judge who heard one case at the Central Criminal Court, that no one had even thought of asking to see the instrument alleged to have been forged. In another case of a noble friend of ours put on his trial for a conspiracy in South America, no one thought of asking the prosecutor when he was examined, what had been his connection with the defendant, else it would have been found that he owed him from 3,000 l. to 4,000 l., and had prosecuted him because he could not obtain a longer accommodation. Then it was only discovered in 1815, that in all Ireland, except one or two counties, the grand juries never in criminal cases thought of examining any witness at all. The civil business there, as we all know, is most closely attended to. The landowners flock to the assizes from all parts, when the presentments are to be made; and extreme care is taken in
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this financial operation. That the judicial functions are also well performed I cannot doubt; only they appear to have been guided by a most singular notion of the law; for it, turned out that all the bills for all offences were found upon the mere reading of the depositions before the committing magistrate, and that no witness ever was called. When this came before my lamented friends—Sir S. Romilly and Mr. Horner—names never to be pronounced by any without profound respect, nor by me without the deepest sorrow for their loss—they saw the necessity of providing a remedy; the rather that this most erroneous practice had become inveterate, and almost all the Judges in Ireland persisted in giving it their sanction. Mr. Horner brought in a Bill the year after, which, with the support of Mr. Peel, was passed, although care was taken to make it enactive and not declaratory, which it manifestly ought to have been, as there was no possible doubt upon the law; but a very misplaced delicacy was shown about declaring that the Judges had for so many years been knowingly allowing an utterly illegal course of proceeding. The result of this malpractice was too apparent. Sir S. Romilly stated—and as no man was ever more scrupulously careful in his assertions, so we may most safely rely upon the statement—that in Ireland the proportion of acquittals to trials was not as in Scotland, one to twelve, or even as in England, one to six, but no less than fifteen to sixteen, there being in that year 192 acquittals in 205 persons tried, and these were all trials for one offence, murder. This is indeed an extreme case of diversity in the proceedings; but there are very considerable differences in other parts of the kingdom. I have stated the average of acquittals in England to be between one-fifth and one-sixth, but the proportion varies in a remarkable manner in different counties. In Somersetshire it is one-third; in Hants and Bucks between one-third and one-fourth; in Sussex one-fifth; in Wilts between one-sixth and one-seventh. Thus whether from the practice of grand juries, or from the manner of conducting prosecutions, the acquittals are more than twice as numerous in some counties than in others.
I have dwelt, my Lords, on the defects of the grand jury, the great want of regular practice, the entire want of responsibility, the necessary uncertainty in which the community must always be left as to

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the persons by whom the verdict is given. But one fault can never be laid to the charge of this institution; all that passes, how irregular soever, how hardly bearing upon persons touching whom the witnesses have deposed, all is confined to the secret place of inquiry, and unless the witnesses choose to tell what passed nothing can reach the public ear. This is a redeeming virtue which affords some compensation fur the evils that must ever attend a secret inquisition. If indeed the grand jury were to receive whatever depositions any persons chose to make before it; if it were to welcome all manner of vituperation against not only the party accused but every one else towards whom a prejudice was entertained, or a spiteful feeling was cherished; if parties absent could be assailed behind their backs, and those who were no parties at all to the proceeding were denounced under colour of charging those who were; and if all that passed were minutely chronicled and fully published to the world—then we might truly affirm that the inquisitorial office was scandalously perverted and abused; that the tribunal so performing its functions had become not merely useless, but pernicious, and far from claiming, as it now does, our respect, might look to be speedily abated as a monstrous and an intolerable nuisance.
The course of the proceedings now brings us to consider the trial of the party, whose seizure and the subsequent preparatory steps we have been following. Here, I grieve to say, we are met with the greatest of all the existing defects, though happily the one most easily removed—I mean the length of time which elapses between the arrest and trial, not uniformly, but unequally in different parts of the country, according to no fixed rule; hardly anywhere apportioned according to any intelligible principle. If a person is charged with an offence that can only be tried at the assizes, he must linger in gaol for above four months in summer, but seven or eight months in winter, unless he happens to be tried in Yorkshire or Lancashire, and then there is generally, not always, the benefit of a winter assize. A poor woman was last July committed to Northampton gaol on a charge of manslaughter, which was found wholly frivolous, so that if a bill was found, which I doubt, she was, as a matter of course, immediately acquitted. But she had lingered in prison upwards of seven months. A poor child
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of twelve years old was exposed for three months to the contamination of the gaol in the same part of the country, on a charge, a most absurd charge, of manslaughter by the finding of a coroner's jury, he having no power of letting her go on her own recognizance, or indeed of taking bail. As soon as the case was stated, there was an end of it, for the child was accused of starving her mother to death, as an accomplice of her father charged with that offence. Had there been a public prosecutor it is almost certain that neither of these cases could have occurred. Had there been proper frequency of trial, it is quite certain that the cruel infliction upon the unhappy parties, because of their inability to find bail, never by any possibility could have befallen them. Such things, as I said of Mr. Blundell's case, may be of rare occurrence; but it is a disgrace to our institutions that there should be even the possibility of their ever happening.
See, again, how capriciously arrangements are made for securing this grand object, supplying this want of the very first necessity, the speedy trial of prisoners, the prevention of their undergoing, not only the miseries of delay, the sufferings of detention, but the contamination of the gaol. I have already noted that the season of the year makes the difference between a confinement of three or four months, and one of seven or eight. But place operates as powerfully as time to create diversity. In London and Middlesex there are twelve assizes and sixteen sessions; there is now a criminal court once a fortnight. By a late arrangement, which does great credit to the Surrey magistrates, the same may be said of that county. Therefore, on both sides of the river, there is the same frequency of criminal courts; but not below London Bridge—for in Kent there are only the sixteen courts, the central assizes, and the quarter sessions—and even these sixteen only as far down as Greenwich, to which the ambit of the central court extends; the rest of Kent have only six, the two assizes and four sessions. If it be said that the circumstances of the metropolitan counties occasion this superiority over the rest of England, I make answer, first, that this will not account for a large portion of the metropolis itself being excluded from its benefits; and next, that it will in no way serve to justify the with-holding of a similar benefit from such

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towns as Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, and Sheffield. Is it not quite self-evident that we must, without further delay, remove this anomaly from our system, and take care that the very highest duties of the Government towards the people should be discharged by providing a sufficient number of criminal courts in every part of the kingdom? There must be four circuits instead of two, and the general sessions must be holden eight times a year. But even this will not suffice; and as it is most just to avoid increasing more than is absolutely necessary the duties of the unpaid magistracy, I can see no other resource than the County Court Judges, who ought to be invested with criminal jurisdiction, and increased in number. By arrangement of the circuits and assizes, and of those other local judicatures, there cannot be any difficulty in providing everywhere a criminal court once a fortnight. The necessary increase in the number of the fifteen Judges will be much less than might at first sight appear; because the circuits should be differently arranged, as has frequently been proposed. The Norfolk lasts only one half the time that the Northern takes; and it seems very possible by combining it with the other short circuit, the Midland, to relieve two of the judges. If the junction of the Midland would too far increase the Norfolk, a portion of it, say Warwickshire, might be joined to the Oxford. I should think that two additional Judges, and ten added to the County Court Judges, would be sufficient. But of two things I am quite certain—that the Bar can easily supply the number of able and experienced men required; and that the expense which the addition would occasion is a thing not even to be named; a thing which we should be ashamed even to have mentioned for the purpose of repudiating, and with indignation, the consideration of such a topic upon such a momentous question as the speedy trial of persons accused, the removal of the greatest disgrace of our judicial system.
The grievance of imprisonment before trial is such as can hardly be exaggerated by any remarks. The facts, of constant and of universal occurrence, bring it home to our apprehension, let me add, to our feelings, more strikingly than any reasoning. I have given a few instances of long detention where the parties were altogether guiltless. But cases are before our
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eyes at every assizes and every sessions beyond the bounds of the metropolitan counties, of some weeks' confinement, where the unhappy prisoners were acquitted, and of the same period added to their sentence when convicted, and if taken into the account so as to mitigate the punishment, yet so much suffering thrown away as regards the only object of penal infliction, the example to the public; for only the amount of the sentence is perceived. But it is to the innocent that this calamity becomes the most cruel. See how numerous a body these form—nearly five thousand acquitted in 1853, all of whom had undergone, one with another, five or six weeks' imprisonment, and some of them much more than the utmost term of the sentence which would have been passed on them had they been convicted. I say nothing of the injury sustained by their families during this period of their separation and confinement.
I have more than once opposed in this House, as well as in the Commons, the addition to the number of the Judges in the Supreme Courts; always agreeing with Lord Denman upon the danger of pursuing such a course without absolute necessity. But I take the true principle to be this. Beware of rashly giving more Judges to do the work in arrear; because, as he said, this holds out a temptation carelessly or lazily to perform the judicial duties, in the expectation that more help will be provided. But when new work is cut out for them, the reason of the apprehension entirely fails; and there not only may safely be made an addition to the judicial force, but there must be such an increase if you would have the increased duties performed. The degree in which some of our courts are now, compared with others, so much left without sufficient employment, is certainly first to be considered; and if the proper remedy for this evil be applied, the equal distribution of business, as has been with perfect success tried in Ireland, there will arise from thence an increased facility of holding four assizes in the year without more than the very moderate increase of numbers which I have named.
The procedure has now reached its last stage. The trial is finished, and the convicts are delivered over to the gaol no longer for detention only, but for punishment. I hold it to be quite clear, first, that the same prison rules should be universally followed, being prescribed by the

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executive Government, and only modified under the local authorities according to particular local circumstances. Secondly, that the system should be framed on principles of strict economy, due care being taken of the prisoner's health, and that no practice should on any account be permitted which shall give a preference to those whose term of confinement is the longest. Thirdly, that the treatment should be, as far as possible, calculated to prevent a repetition of the offence at the expiration of the sentence—and this great object may best be attained by making it reformatory. On the second of these principles, I have to observe three things: that the dietary of the Scotch prisoners having been carefully examined and compared by eminent medical authorities, has been found to the full as well calculated to sustain the health of the prisoner, as the more costly dietary of the English gaols. Next, that the clothes cost more in the aggregate, because the untried prisoners in Scotland prefer saving the wear and tear of their own clothes, and using the prison dress, which the English do not. Lastly, that the rule has almost everywhere been most unwisely laid down of giving a better diet to those sentenced to a longer term—one of the grossest absurdities which can well be conceived, because it gives culprits a direct interest in committing a greater crime, and because the reason alleged for the different treatment is utterly untenable, inasmuch as the better diet takes place at the beginning of the confinement, when we cannot surely suppose the system to foresee how long it is to last. Upon the third head I have to remark how salutary, both as reformatory and as economical, it is that habits of industry should be encouraged in all prisoners, both untried and convicted; and this can only be done by allowing them a proportion of their earnings, and by making their diet to depend in some degree upon their conduct. An unfortunate provision has found its way into the Prison Act of 1839, which has, whether rightly or not, been construed into a prohibition to allow the prisoners any share of their earnings (2 & 3 Vic., c. 56, s. 8). Nothing can be more pernicious than such a regulation, and it ought, without delay, to be repealed. The language of all who are practically acquainted with the subject is strongly condemnatory of it. I need only mention that truly enlightened and benevolent individual, whom to name is to praise, a man worthy of all accepta-
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tion, Mr. Clay, the chaplain of Preston Gaol. But the Chester governor bears his testimony also. "Few," he observes, "have returned to prison who had received their earnings during a first confinement." The deputy-governor of Lancaster Castle in like manner tells us that since the Act of 1839 there has been no zeal shown in labour; the convicts are deprived of all interest in their work, and only influenced by the fear of punishment. Mr. Hill, whose experience both in England and Scotland has been so extensive, has the strongest aversion to this ill-advised prohibition; and he instances the effects of promoting industrious habits not only in attaining the greater object of reformation, but even in the article of expense.
It is found that the cost of prisoners in Scotland amounts to 13 l. a year, while it is in England no less than 21 l. Now, from what I have already stated, a part of this difference is no doubt owing to the Scotch dietary being considerably lower than the English; yet, as the greater expense of prison clothing, owing to the untried wearing it in the one country and not in the other, must be deducted from the difference, we shall not find more than two or three pounds to be reckoned as the amount which cannot be saved, in equalising the expenses. Thus there is a saving of from 90,000 l. to 100,000 l. which could be made upon the 15,750 prisoners in England, if they laboured as they do in Scotland—contributing a portion of their earnings to defray the expenses of their maintenance, but receiving the rest as the wages of their industry. Although I reckon the mere saving of so much money by the prison industry of little importance compared with the inestimable benefit of is reformatory tendency, I yet must be permitted to hold up this fund as quite sufficient, nay, more than sufficient, to meet all the expenses that may be incurred by the grand improvement which is required so urgently in the administration of our criminal law, the additional judges, to give a certainty that the accused shall be speedily brought to trial, the guiltless liberated, and the pains of the law swiftly follow the detection of the offence.
The defects in our system, my Lords, which I have pointed out, and which are partly the abuses introduced in the course of time, but in great part also connected with abrogated laws and obsolete customs, and are in truth the relics of the most

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unenlightened ages, are deserving of your most serious attention, in order that you may remove thorn, and effect not merely a salutary, but a needful improvement in our criminal jurisprudence. Those who have best understood our legal polity, were most sensible of its faults; and some who far from being given to change, had experienced times of the wildest innovation, and dreaded all rash reforms, wisely counselled the timely and well-considered extirpation of abuses, as the best security against ill-considered and sweeping reformation. To this class belonged Lord Hale, one of the most illustrious magistrates who ever adorned the bench, but also one of the most wise and enlightened of the writers that have left their works for the instruction and the guidance of mankind. Having lived through the turbulent period of the Commonwealth, when it seemed as if the fact of any institution's existence sufficed for its condemnation, while he retained the aversion to needless change, and the apprehension of perilous experiments, which his experience of those troublous times imprinted on his memory, he also drew from that experience the lesson of wisdom, that nothing is so dangerous as the delay of needful improvement, nothing so apt to fling reform into the worst hands, the hands of ignorant or of desperate men. He has left us this invaluable legacy, the treasure which his judicial and his legislative life had enabled him to amass, his celebrated Treatise of the Amendment of the Law. To my noble and learned Friends I need not cite words which are familiar to them; though indeed in our capacity of lawgivers we cannot too often or too seriously ponder upon them.
"If something considerable (says Lord Hale) for the reformation of what is amiss in the law be not done by knowing and judicious persons, too much may some time or other be done by some either out of envy at the profession, or mistaken apprehensions, or popular humours.—The amendment of things amiss timely by men that under stand their business may prevent very much evil; and when the business is begun by such hands it may be too late to allay it. It will have this plausible pretence, that the judges and lawyers will do nothing to the law, and therefore it shall be done by other hands. Such a humour would be more easily prevented by a wise and seasonable undertaking in this kind.
I think it may fairly be asserted that I have shown your lordships no little amount of "things amiss" in the most important of all parts of our judicial system, the administration of the criminal law; and that there are far too real and too grave
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subjects of complaint, not among such as appeal to the "popular humour," or are moved by "envy at the profession," but in the opinion of knowing and judicious persons, and which call on "judges and lawyers" to prevent the application of the remedy from falling into evil hands, by wisely and seasonably undertaking it themselves. The existence and the heavy pressure of the mischief, I take to be altogether beyond dispute. One need not be a lawyer to perceive it; and the people as well as the judges feel its pressure.
If in this age of enterprise some traveller should fare forth in quest of information rather than adventures, should traverse the sea, penetrate into unexplored continents, and, discovering new regions and strange races, should return to make us partake of the gratification his curiosity had received; were he to tell of a people not barbarous but highly refined, and living under a system of well-elaborated criminal law, yet wholly without the means of effectually executing it—having no regular plan for tracing offences, or tracking offenders, no security for their ever being brought to justice—leaving the law sometimes to execute itself, or at haphazard placing its enforcement in the hands of those most likely to abuse the office, or peradventure, not to perform it at all—that crime was so capriciously dealt with, that some acts of the greatest atrocity were not deemed fit objects of any punishment, while others of a light and trivial kind were severely visited—that the love of liberty being a distinguishing characteristic of this singular people, and a horror of the bare possibility of suffering by the innocent, reconciling all to the constant escape of the guilty, there was yet exhibited at all times and in every place the spectacle of loss of liberty before guilt was proved—that imprisonment for months was inflicted upon the guiltless—that the sufferings of the accused depended not upon the nature of the charge against them, but upon the part of the country in which they happened to live, or indeed to be arrested—and that the whole arrangements for detention and for trial were local and capricious, both as regarded the treatment of the offender and the description of persons who should accuse and of those who should judge—that in all the most important particulars everything was left to mere blind hazard and ever-varying caprice. Surely, surely, this tale would at once be rejected with incredulous scorn, and the traveller ranked

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with Ferdinand Mendez Pinto, as recounting things not only untrue, but impossible, because no such nation as he had described could exist. Yet he had only given an account, and not an exaggerated account, of this country at this time. But this country cannot submit to continue in this state for any longer time. It is now just a quarter of a century since I related in the other House of Parliament the voyage of the same traveller, and his narrative was not without a useful result; it was the foundation and the origin of local judicature. On the close of the relation I presented the County Courts Bill, which, after some unfortunate delays, became the law of the land, and gave to England the inestimable benefits of cheap and speedy justice, but in civil suits alone. Let me indulge the hope that this new journey of the same traveller may be attended with the yet more valuable result of local criminal judicature, the effectual execution of the criminal law, and the rescue of the community on the one hand from the escape of the guilty, and on the other from the suffering of the innocent.
My Lords, I grieve that I have found it necessary to bring this great subject forward in the absence of the Chief Justice; but I found upon inquiry that my noble and learned Friend cannot leave his circuit before the recess, and I considered it my duty to run no unnecessary risk of being prevented from laying the whole case before Parliament. I cannot tell how soon I may be summoned from hence, Indeed, almost everything that one now does in this kind is of a testamentary nature. Alas, I said so, when a few months ago I communicated some of the statements I have now made to my loved and revered friend the late Chief Justice of England in the last letter I wrote to him. Unhappily, it has been my fate to survive him; but for how long is most uncertain; and I have deemed it an imperative duty to bequeath these proposals, with the reasons which support them, to my brethren and my country, while I yet can perform that duty, and before I shall have sunk into feeble, and unreasoning, and narrative age.
I move you to adopt these Resolutions, which embody my statement, my proposal, and my argument.
Moved, to resolve—
1. "That it is the Duty of the Government to provide effectually for the Execution of the Criminal Law, by the Discovery, the Securing, and the Prosecution of Offenders:
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2. "That the local Police Establishments ought to be under the direct Superintendence and Control of the Government, [* as far as possible in concert with the local Authorities;] and that the same Rules should, as nearly as local Circumstances will permit, be everywhere applied:
3. "That the Appointment of a regular Constabulary Force should be obligatory upon the local Authorities:
4. "That in addition to such regular Force a reserve Force ought to be maintained of Persons with moderate Pay, to be called out for a short Time yearly in order to be inspected and trained, and to be bound to serve when required by the Magistrate:
5. "That a sufficient number of Stipendiary Magistrates should be appointed in the other Towns of considerable Size, with the Powers and Duties of those appointed for London and Middlesex, so far as these Powers and Duties relate to the Examination and Commitment of Persons charged with Offences, and to the Criminal Jurisdiction vested in them:
6. "That the Prosecution of Offenders should be intrusted to an Officer appointed by the Government, with such Number of subordinate Officers as may be required for conducting Prosecutions in the Counties and larger Towns; but that until such a Measure can be adopted, it is expedient to appoint Barristers who shall advise upon and conduct the Prosecutions in the Central Criminal Court and the Courts of Quarter Session of Middlesex and Surrey:
7. "That the public Prosecutor should in all the graver Cases, as the Pleas of the Crown and Forgery, proceed by Bill before the Grand Jury; but in other Cases should, at his Discretion, be allowed to proceed upon Commitment by a Stipendiary Magistrate, without any Bill found:
8. "That Assizes should be holden Four Times a Year in each County, and Quarter Sessions so frequently and at such Times relatively to the Assizes as that a Court of Criminal Jurisdiction shall sit once a Fortnight in each County:
9. "That to equalise the Business, Counties may be divided and Parts of different Counties united for the Purposes of Trial, and that Persons may be tried at the Option of the Public Prosecutor either in the District where the Offence is alleged to have been committed or in an adjoining District:
10. "That the same Criminal Jurisdiction should be given to Judges of the County Courts as is at present possessed by the Quarter Sessions of the Peace, that this Jurisdiction should extend over the District subject to their Civil Jurisdiction, and that the Justices of every County may be relieved from the obligation to hold Sessions oftener than Four Times a Year, whensoever it shall appear that beside those Four Sessions and the Assizes there is sufficient Number of County Court Criminal Sittings to give Two Criminal Courts monthly in the District:
11. "That a reasonable Suns for Trouble and Expenses should be allowed to all Persons summoned to attend as Petty Jurors on any Criminal Trial:
12. "That the Costs of every Person tried and acquitted, or discharged for want of Prosecution, should be paid out of the County Rates on Certificate of the Court before whom he was tried or brought for Trial or of the Magistrate by whom he was discharged; [* and that the committing

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Magistrate should have power to certify what Witnesses at the public expense may be brought to the place of trial on the Prisoner's behalf:]
13. "That in all Prisons Arrangements should, as far as possible, be made not only for separating the untried from the convicted, but for separating different Prisoners of both Classes:
14. "That Imprisonment should, as far as possible, be accompanied with the Means of giving Work to those who are willing to work, and whether untried or sentenced to Imprisonment without hard Labour; that all the Earnings of the untried should belong to them, and to the Convicts a Portion upon their Discharge:
15. "That a Discretion should be vested in the Governors, Chaplains, and other Superintendents of Gaols, of improving the Diet of Convicts according to their Demeanour and Industry:
16. "That, subject to the Control of the Superintendents, with the Advice and Consent of the Chaplain, Prisoners may be employed as Assistant Teachers in the Prison:
[* 17. "That the Dietary of Prisons ought never to allow more to Convicts in proportion to the Term of their Imprisonment; and that in respect of Diet regard should be had, as far as possible, to the Industry and other Demeanour of the Convicts under their Sentences:]
[* 18. "That Justices of the Peace, in all Cases in which they now have Power to take Bail, and Coroners in Cases of Manslaughter, should have the Power of allowing any Person accused to go at large upon entering into his own Recognisance to appear and take his Trial; and that in Cases of Manslaughter Coroners should also have the Power to liberate upon Bail."]
[* Additions made on the 26th and 30th of March.]
THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid he could not, even in a very slight degree, follow his noble and learned Friend through the important subjects to which he had so lucidly and ably called attention; and if he did not attempt to do so he trusted that his apology would be that the only notice which his noble and learned Friend had given was his intention to call the attention of the House to the subject of criminal procedure. Of course, on a subject so vast, and involving such important considerations, it was impossible he could be prepared to follow the able, lucid, and long—but not too long—statement of his noble and learned Friend. He (the Lord Chancellor) could only say that with the great bulk of those observations he most entirely and most heartily agreed. As to what was the fittest and most practicable remedy opinions might differ, and it would not become him to offer off-hand any confident opinion. With regard to some of the observations, he must express his entire concurrence. In the first place, the organisation of the police throughout the country, that one policeman should have jurisdiction on one side of a hedge and
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another on another was a perfect anomaly and almost seemed to be contrived to secure impunity to criminals. Government had turned their attention to the subject, and last year the noble Lord now at the head of Her Majesty's Government had brought in a bill for the purpose. Whatever the defects of that Bill, he (the Lord Chancellor) must express his regret that the measure had not passed into law. He also trusted that some measure without the defects of the bill of last session might be eventually adopted with regard to criminal prosecutors. He agreed in the abstract that the existence of such functionaries would be attended with great benefits; but when his noble and learned Friend spoke of a single public prosecutor he (the Lord Chancellor) could hardly think that 500 would be sufficient to discharge the duties of such officers; because, to make the system efficient, one or more would at least be required in all the large towns and more important districts. He believed, however, that in addition to such functionaries the wants of the country would require the power of proceeding as was now done. It might be the relic of a barbarous age, but he could never believe that it would be consistent with the feelings of the country that on great questions it should be left to any Officer of the Crown to say whether any offender should be prosecuted or not. In the case of murder, for instance, the institution of the coroner, which was a popular institution, was the means by which the public always felt that they had the power of bringing a delinquent to justice even if the magistrates did not choose to do so. He must, therefore, guard himself from assenting to the suggestion that the institution of public prosecutors would be a safeguard against many of the evils which his noble and learned Friend had so ably exposed. To take his noble and learned Friend's illustration. The case of a man committed for forgery, against whom a true bill was found; but when the case came on for trial a witness was not forthcoming, and the culprit escaped, he did not see how a public prosecutor could remedy that, or that there was any remedy except by keeping the witnesses in close confinement until they were wanted. He believed that his noble and learned Friend would agree that this remedy would be worse than the disease; but otherwise any criminal who could prevail upon a witness to absent himself would escape the public prosecutor just as easily as he did at

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present. With regard to the increase of the number of the assizes and sessions, he was much inclined to agree with his noble and learned Friend and to think that, to some extent, an increase might be not only desirable but practicable. Here again, however, it must be borne in mind that the question was but a balance of the inconveniences, and that as long as they had trial by jury they would always find it extremely difficult in small countries to secure juries oftener than at present—[Lord BROUGHAM: What if jurymen were paid?] There were once paid juries in the Exchequer Court, but they were most unpopular, and the measure which abolished them gave great satisfaction. He entirely agreed that great grievances arose from delay; but unless they had a Court constantly sitting in every town all over the country, to dispose of the cases as they arose, there must always be delay. It was a case of the balance of how much; but he was prepared to say that Government ought to take into consideration, and would no doubt take into consideration, the question whether it would not be possible to have the advantage of additional assizes and sessions. He trusted that it would not be supposed that he was answering or commenting upon the observations of his noble and learned Friend, for he felt that he could only discharge the last most imperfectly. He could only express his general concurrence in the observations of his noble and learned Friend, and in the truth of his proposition that something ought to be done in the matter.
Further Debate upon the said Motion was put off, sine die.
House adjoured to Monday next.