§ LORD CAMPBELL rose to ask his noble and learned Friend on the woolsack the question of which he had given notice respecting a subject of great importance. He would not now revert to the facts which had been disclosed during the trial of a recent case, as they must be well known to their Lordships; but, he was shocked to say, that for too many years past the crime of poisoning had become most alarmingly common in this country, and it was to be feared that the facilities which existed for the commission of the crime were what had led to its frequency. Many crimes of the kind had been caused by the institutions called burial societies, the members of which had in several instances been proved to be accessory to the death of their own offspring. Another class of these cases arose out of the present system of life insurance. Life insurances had been effected by parties who possessed no interest whatever in the lives of the persons insured, and this had been done with the premeditated object of committing murder by the administration of poison. Irrespective of anything that had recently been disclosed, he knew, from his own observation and experience on the bench, that many cases had been proved where insurances had been effected with a 541 view to afterwards committing murder, and that on the consummation of the act, the money insured under the policy had been received. Until very lately there had been no regulation with respect to the sale of poisons, and accordingly arsenic could be purchased just as easily as Epsom salts. The consequence was, that poisoning by arsenic became alarmingly common, particularly in the counties of Essex and Norfolk; and the first case of capital conviction that he tried after he had the honour of a seat on the bench was that of a woman whose familiarity with the use of that poison was so notorious that it had procured for her the name of "Sally Arsenic." The Act which had passed for regulating the sale of arsenic had had a very beneficial effect, and arsenic had gone somewhat out of fashion; but, unfortunately, another poison equally deadly in its effects, nux vomica, had taken its place. A person might now go to any druggist's shop in England and buy a pennyworth of nux vomica; he had only to say that he wished to poison rats, and at once the nux vomica was sold to him without the smallest hesitation or reluctance. True, nux vomica was not so powerful a poison as the alkaloid of strychnia, which was extracted from it, but its administration was attended with the same results. In fact, however, they could not only buy nux vomica, but strychnia itself, from the druggists, without difficulty of any sort. It was a matter of serious importance, then, that some restraint should be put upon the sale of these poisons, and he thought it the duty of the Government to consider and decide what other substances besides arsenic there were, the sale of which ought to be restrained or prohibited. He should be happy to assist them in framing a measure for regulating the sale of poisons, and would be glad if his noble and learned Friend would inform him whether the Government intended to introduce a Bill for that purpose.
§ LORD RAVENSWORTHsaid, that, before the Lord Chancellor answered the question, he wished to suggest that it might be advisable to institute some further regulations with reference to insurance companies, which might have the effect of checking the crime of poisoning. He thought that in every case where a company had such reasonable suspicions with regard to the cause of death of a party insured as to conceive themselves warranted in giving notice to other insurance 542 companies, it should also be incumbent upon them to give information to and lay the circumstances of the case before the Home Secretary, in order that due inquiry might be made by those whose duty it was to protect the lives of Her Majesty's subjects.
THE EARL OF DONOUGHMOREsaid, the noble and learned Lord had committed a breach of the orders of the House by the course he had adopted in this instance. It was the rule of the House that the first quarter of an hour of their sitting should be devoted to the reception of petitions; but no sooner had the Lord Chancellor taken his seat on the woolsack than the noble Lord had risen and put the question of which he had given notice, although in the proper order of proceeding it should have come after the other business on the paper. He trusted the Lord Chancellor would not answer the question of the noble and learned Lord until the orders of the day were disposed of.
THE LORD CHANCELLORThe question put to him by his noble and learned Friend had been followed by some observations from another noble Lord; and if putting the question had justified that noble Lord in observing upon it, it certainly justified him (the Lord Chancellor) in giving it an answer. The only answer he could give, however, was, that five years ago this subject was under the consideration of his right hon. Friend who was then, as now, Secretary of State for the Home Department, and the result of the investigation which then took place was the introduction of a measure confined to the sale of arsenic; and he understood from his right hon. Friend that the reason for that measure being confined to arsenic was, that there were difficulties of a serious nature in the way of defining the different poisons. He thought that a number of other ingredients might be put in the same category with arsenic; but it was the opinion of one of the most eminent medical men in the metropolis, that great evil might be done by furnishing the public with a list of seventeen other articles, all of which were quite as deadly poisons as arsenic; and this was the reason that the measure did not go further and include those articles. But there were now some other poisons—and strychnia amongst them which recent events had made familiar to the public, and he did not see, therefore, why they should not be placed in the same category; and his right hon. Friend the 543 Home Secretary had authorised him to state that the question should have his careful and attentive consideration.