Lords Sitting of 9 May 1856

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS.—1a Judicial Statistics.
2a Bankruptcy(Scotland).
3a Joint Stock Companies Winding-up Acts Amendment.

HER MAJESTY'S MESSAGE—MAJOR GE NERAL SIR W. F. WILLIAMS, K.C.B.
Order of the Day for the consideration of THE QUEEN'S Message of Yesterday read.
Message read.
EARL GRANVILLE: My Lords, pursuance of the notice which I gave yesterday, I rise to perform a very agreeable duty—to submit to your Lordships a proposition which will, I believe, meet with your entire and unanimous concurrence—namely, that we should thank Her Majesty for the gracious Message which has just been read, and that we should assure Her Majesty of our readiness to concur in enabling Her Majesty to make provision for securing to Sir William Fenwick Williams a pension of £1,000 per annum for the term of his natural life. I stated yesterday, after giving notice of this Motion, that Her Majesty had also been graciously pleased to announce Her intention of conferring upon General Williams a Baronetcy under the style and title of Sir William Fenwick Williams of Kars. I believe your Lordships are aware that General Williams is an artillery officer in Her Majesty's service. I understand that he was placed in the Royal Artillery Academy at Woolwich by the late Duke of Kent, and, without being able to specify exact dates, I may state that he was sent out in early life on special service to Ceylon, where for about nine years he discharged the duties of an engineer. In 1843 General Williams was appointed by the noble Earl on the benches below me (the Earl of Aberdeen) a Commissioner for examining into the boundary between the Turkish and Persian territories, a work of very great hardship and difficulty, in which he was occupied about nine years, four of which were actually passed under canvass. During that time the life of General Williams was

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frequently in great danger, and he was also exposed to the deadly diseases which are incident to the localities which were the scene of his labours. A noble friend of mine, who is not now in the House, told me the other day with some pride—pride which I could easily understand—that previous to the appointment I have just mentioned, his gallant father, Lord Vivian, was the person who selected Captain Williams, as he then was, to be sent out to instruct the Turks in artillery practice,—an arm in which they have shown, during the late war, that they have not neglected the lessons of their European instructors. General Williams, from the peculiar experience he had gained in these services, was selected by the noble Earl near me, (the Earl of Aberdeen), and by the Secretary of State for Foreign affairs, to go out as Her Majesty's Commissioner to the Turkish army in Asia, and I think the event has proved that a more fit appointment has scarcely ever been made. General Williams appears to have arrived at Erzeroum in September, 1854, and a few days afterwards he reached Kars. The events of the memorable defence of Kars are well known to your Lordships, and although the military operations at Kars and at Silistria cannnot fail to give us the highest satisfaction on account of the valuable services which were rendered at both places by English officers, yet painful occurrences took place during the fourteen months of General Williams's command at Kars which I shall not recall to your Lordships' recollection. Such a retrospect would, I think, be most inappropriate on the present occasion, and I am the better enabled to avoid that retrospect because the whole question relating to those occurrences, and the parties to whom blame attached, has been incidentally discussed in this House, and has been debated in the other House on a specific motion upon which a Vote was taken. I am, therefore, relieved from the necessity of entering into questions relating to the British Government or to the British Ambassador; and still more should I think it unbecoming to point out any deficiencies which may have been thought to exist on the part of our Allies, the Turks. With regard to the merits of General Williams himself, I have felt very strongly the danger of exaggerating those merits. Even during the last two years, when exaggerated blame has been attached to persons both living and
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dead, we have seen reaction in proportion to the previous exaggeration; and there is the same danger that in the case of a person who should be selected for the popular idol for the moment, any exaggeration of praise may be followed by a corresponding and still more painful reaction. Having consulted all the evidence to which it was in my power to refer, referring to this subject—the official letters of General Williams, the book of Dr. Sandwith, one of his associates, and the popular accounts of the siege contained in the press—I am bound to say that I have failed to discover any ground for that sort of discriminating criticism which might give additional weight to the praise I wish to bestow. At the commencement of General Williams's correspondence there appears to be a tone which, if we had not known that it was so completely justified by subsequent events, might have appeared a little querulous. Those events put any such criticism completely out of the question. There is only one point with respect to which I conceive that General Williams has not exhibited the greatest qualities of a commander, and that is entirely owing to his not having had the opportunity of showing what are his powers of manœuvring a large army in the field. But in respect to the other qualifications of a distinguished military leader, I must say that to his possession of them the amplest testimony has been borne. In considering the career of General Williams I could not help thinking of a celebrated passage which occurs in the work of a great French historian of the last war, and which has before this been quoted in reference to one of the greatest military leaders whom this country has produced. Entering into a consideration of the various and complex qualities which are necessary to form a great commander, the passage to which I allude points out the necessity that such a man should not be alone a general, an engineer, and a geographer, but that he should be well versed in human nature, adroit in the management of men, possessed of qualities which would enable him to act as a Minister of State, and endowed with the versatility which would place it within his power to descend from the performance of those high functions to the discharge of the duties of a commissary's clerk. Now, taking these conditions for the formation of a great commander, as set forth in the passage to which I have alluded, I think I may say that General

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Williams will be found to have complied with them in a, remarkable degree. I have referred to his services at Ceylon at a time when he was acting as an engineer in a tropical climate; I have stated that when laying down the boundary between the Turkish and Persian territories he found an opportunity of displaying his eminent powers as a geographer;—it is impossible to read his despatches, written under great difficulties—it is impossible to observe the manner in which he dealt with persons placed in high authority—it is impossible to note the vigour of the measures which he took in organising the defence of Kars, and in provisioning that fortress, objects which he accomplished in an incredibly short time—without feeling that he was gifted with some, at all events, of the most important qualities which tend to form a great Minister of State. And when your Lordships bear in mind that he had only the assistance of Mr. Churchill in discharging the business of the commissariat, I am sure you will not be disposed to deny him the capability of descending to the performance of the duties of a commissary's clerk. Regarding him as a man conversant with human nature, I do not think it is possible to find an instance in the late campaign in which—the difference of class and religion which prevailed among those with whom he had to deal being taken into consideration—any man has proved himself superior in that respect to General Williams. The principle upon which he acted seemed to be this; when he discovered a really efficient man, and one whom he could trust, to place in that man the most implicit confidence. To those whom he found to be incapable, he was as hard as iron. In the case of those masses whose necessities he was bound to consider, he showed the greatest amount of philanthropic interest which it was possible to exhibit. And I must say that one of the most remarkable instances of the influence which by the force of his character he was able to exert over all who happened to come in contact with him, is the co-operation between the Christians and the Mussulmans which by the intellectual energy which he exhibited he had the good fortune to effect. I am happy to have it in my power to cite this instance, because I look upon it as an auspicious omen of the good which is likely to result of that hatti-sheriff which the Sultan has now so liberally granted in the case of his Christian subjects. If anything
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were wanting to complete our sense of the reputation which General Williams has acquired for himself, it would be found in the respect and courtesy with which he is treated by a generous foe. My noble Friend at the head of the Foreign Department took occasion, a few evenings ago, at a banquet in the City of London, to read a letter from General Williams, in which that gallant officer warmly describes the kindness which he has received at the hands of General Mouravieff, and the exceeding humanity which was displayed by the Russian commander, not alone to the English, but also to the Turkish soldiers, whom the fate of war had made his prisoners at Kars. For my own part, I must say that I hardly know of any circumstance more calculated to create a kindly feeling between two great nations which have just ceased to wage war one against the other, than the fact that one of the British officers whose actions have won for him the highest distinction in the military history of the last two years, has been treated with kindness and respect by that general who, during the same period, was the most fortunate of the commanders in the service of the Russian Emperor. My Lords, having said thus much of General Williams, I may observe that I do not think I should be pursuing a course which would be acceptable to that gallant officer if I were to pass over without comment those who were associated with him in the glorious struggle in which he was engaged. One of those was Colonel Lake, who, in the part which he played in that struggle, exhibited not only great energy, but the most admirable skill. It is scarcely within my province to offer an opinion upon such subjects, yet I may say that I have been informed by those well qualified to speak upon such a point, that Colonel Lake's system of fortifications was of the most admirable and effective description; that they were such as to render Fort Lake itself absolutely impregnable; while the other forts were so constructed, that they could not by any possibility be attacked without exposing the assailants to the most destructive fire. It was but the other day that I saw a statement to the effect, that General Williams had designated the gallant officer of whom I have just spoken as the Todleben of Kars—a complement the highest and the most graceful which, in my opinion, could be paid him. Another officer who is deserving of the greatest commendation is Captain Thompson, who

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was seriously wounded in the early part of the struggle, who, in consequence, returned to this country in ill health, but who only remained ten days—scarcely time to embrace his mother—when he started in a crippled state for Kars. I am told that Captain Thompson held the eastern portion of the fortifications of Kars in a manner beyond all praise, and that he contributed greatly to the success of the engagement by opportunely bringing up some heavy guns, and by a flank movement of some riflemen which he ordered to be executed in anticipation of instructions subsequently issued by the general in command. There is also another gentleman, whose name will not soon fade away from the annals of English military history—I allude to Major Teesdale. I have been informed that that gallant officer, only twenty-three years old, and of so boyish an appearance as to make his appointment to a position of great responsibility seem almost ridiculous—has had the highest testimony borne to his merit, while acting in the absence of General Williams, as commissioner at Kars. He was in that capacity consulted upon matters of the greatest importance and the minutest detail by grey-headed generals of the Turkish army. My Lords, I scarcely know of anything more characteristic of that courage, that humanity, and that modesty by which English officers are so much distinguished, than the fact that is recorded by Dr. Sandwith in his interesting book, that he, as well as the other companions of Major Teesdale, learned for the first time, from the lips of Russian officers, the circumstance that they had seen that young and heroic soldier jump over the walls of the fortifications amid a shower of bullets, to rescue a Russian officer from death. I am glad to be able to mention, in connection with the names to which I have already called your Lordships' attention, that of a civilian as one of the heroes connected with the defence of Kars. The individual to whom I refer is Dr. Sandwith, who found himself placed in a position of great difficulty at the head of an hospital —filled, as has been said, with attar of roses—but which could furnish nothing that would be of any real service to an army in the field. He, however, in spite of enormous difficulties, put that hospital in a state of order which might afford a model for similar establishments nearer home, while, with a talent which appears to have belonged to him in common with
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all his English companions, he acquired an influence over his Turkish assistants which stood him in good stead. I am not, of course, surprised to learn that he readily exposed himself to danger in the field in the discharge of his duties, because that has been done in almost every instance by those gentlemen connected with his profession who were attached to the army in the Crimea. We ought, however, I think, to extend to him the tribute of our admiration for the zeal which prompted him during more than one dreary month of the siege of Kars—notwithstanding the ample excuse afforded him by his multifarious civil occupations for declining to undertake any further duty—not to shrink from that distressing night work to which the necessity of having European eyes upon every exposed point in the fortifications rendered it necessary that he should subject himself, and not to shrink from it too at a time when the severity of the cold was such, that even the running streams passing through the town were frozen into solid ice. I have now mentioned to your Lordships some incidents which go to prove that, while men may make themselves glorious with the sword, it yet requires a pen in other hands to make them famous. These brave gentlemen will, no doubt, reap the reward of their gallant conduct while continuing to pursue the path of honour and utility in their several callings; yet I feel convinced that they will regard the compliment now paid to General Williams as reflecting some of its lustre on themselves. Before 1 sit down I cannot forbear from saying a word—although it forms no part of my present task—in recognition of the aid rendered to our countrymen by the foreigners with whom they were associated. Great praise is due to General Kmety, whom, as he is not likely to be recompensed by his own country, I should be the more loth to omit to name on this occasion. I have already observed that there are reasons why I should refrain from adverting to the conduct of the Turkish Government; but no such considerations of delicacy need prevent me from expressing what I believe to be the unanimous opinion of your Lordships in regard to the behaviour of the Turkish soldiers, than whom no troops have evinced in a higher degree the military virtues of courage, patience, sobriety, and frugality. A striking evidence of this was seen in the fact that, in the midst of famine these brave men guarded the provisions of the

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army under the enemy's fire, and rather than touch the food intrusted to their charge preferred to die of hunger at their posts. My Lords, having briefly stated the reasons why I trust you will unanimously concur in this Motion, I have now only to move that—
"An humble Address be presented to Her Majesty to return Her Majesty the thanks of this House for Her Majesty's most gracious Message, informing this House, "That Her Majesty is desirous of conferring a signal Mark of Her Favour and Approbation on Major-General Sir William Fenwick Williams, K.C.B., for the eminent and distinguished Services rendered by him as Her Majesty's Commissioner At the Head Quarters of the Turkish Army in Asia, and particularly in the gallant Defence of Kars;" and to assure Her Majesty that this House will cheerfully concur in enabling Her Majesty to make a Provision for securing to Sir William Fenwick Williams a Pension of £1,000 per annum for the Term of his natural life."
Agreed to, Nemine Dissentiente; and the said Address ordered to be presented to Her Majesty by the Lords with White Staves.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
LORD REDESDALE LORD REDESDALE moved the following Resolution:—
"That this House will not read any Bill a Second Time after Tuesday, the 22nd Day of July, except Bills of Aid or Supply, or any Bill in relation to which the House shall have resolved, before the Second Reading is moved, that the Circumstances which render Legislation on the Subject of the same expedient are either of such recent Occurrence or real urgency as to render the immediate Consideration of the same necessary."
The noble Lord said he felt assured that if their Lordships were to adopt his Resolution, they would find it tend considerably to the efficient transaction of the public business; but, if adopted, it ought to be strictly adhered to except in cases of real urgency.
THE MARQUESS OF CLANRICARDEwhile admitting that it was desirable to avoid as much as possible all hasty and ill-considered legislation, expressed a hope that the Resolution would be interpreted in a liberal spirit, and that it would not be permitted to impede the progress of really important measures which required to be passed without delay.
THE EARL OF DERBYsaid, that a distinction ought to be drawn between Bills of importance and Bills of urgency, for Bills might be urgent which were not important, and important though not urgent. The more important they were the more time was required to consider them; and,
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on the other hand, a measure might be urgent in point of time and yet not permanently important. He hoped the effect of the Resolution would be to prevent important measures being sent up at so late a period of the Session that they could not be fully considered. The object of the Resolution was to prevent important measures being brought up to that House at a period of the Session when many of the Peers had left town, so that they could not receive the consideration that was proper to them.
EARL GREYentirely concurred in what the noble Earl had said, and in the distinction which he had taken between "important" and "urgent." That distinction was not attended to last year, and the consequence was their Lordships passed a measure in so imperfect a state that the first thing done by the Government this year was to bring in a Bill utterly subversive of the Bill which had been passed. He trusted there would be a determination on both sides of the House to adhere to the Resolution, though he was afraid it would rest with the independent Members to enforce it. By enforcing it the other House would take care to send up important measures at an early period.
EARL GRANVILLE,admitting that the Resolution was justifiable in principle and well calculated to have a salutary effect in both Houses of Parliament, yet hoped that there would be no very stringent application of it; for they could not blind themselves to the fact that arguments might be urged against it, and that an unpleasant feeling might arise in the other House if their Lordships should declare that, come what might, they would "strike work" on a certain day, and refuse to entertain measures the immediate enactment of which might be imperatively demanded by the public interests. Such a course would be unprecedented, and scarcely constitutional. At the same time he fully acknowledged the value of the distinction between "importance" and "urgency," and only protested against too strict and unbending an adherence to the letter of the Resolution. Its spirit he would religiously respect, though reserving to the Government the right of exercising a discretion as to the particular measures that should be regarded as "urgent."
THE EARL OF MALMESBURYobserved that, after what had fallen from the noble Earl there seemed but too much reason to apprehend that the Government

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meant to act this Session in the same manner as last, and to introduce important measures at a very late period. If so, the independent Members would have to take the matter into their own hands.
EARL GRANVILLEobjected to any such interpretation of his words. He had protested against too stringent an application of the rule, but had accompanied his protest with a declaration of his intention to act in the spirit of the Resolution.
LORD REDESDALEsaid, that the other House felt as much as their Lordships did the necessity of having important measures considered at an early period, inasmuch as that it almost invariably happened that, notwithstanding that they sent down Bills to the House of Commons at a much earlier period than the House of Commons sent up corresponding Bills to them, the House of Commons did not pass them, in consequence of the late period of the Session. He did not think there was the slightest cause for the apprehension of any unpleasant feeling between the House of Commons and that House by adopting the Resolution.
Resolution agreed to.

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT.
THE BISHOP OF OXFORD THE BISHOP OF OXFORD rose to move for a Select Committee on the present mode of carrying into effect capital punishments. He said he did not ask their Lordships to express any opinion whether or not we should maintain the present system of carrying into execution capital punishment, but only so far to agree that it was a matter on which there might be two good opinions as to refer the consideration of the question to a Select Committee. He thought it would take very little argument to show that there was so fair a presumption that a considerable alteration might with advantage be made in the mode in which these punishments were carried out, that it was not unreasonable to ask their Lordships to inquire into the matter. The great question for consideration was not whether executions should be public or private—for private executions, in the proper sense of that word, would be altogether intolerable in this country—but what should be the measure and the nature of the publicity attending them. Upon inquiry he thought it would appear that the present system provided publicity in the sense that it made these executions a public spectacle. That was an evil; and if it were possible to devise a plan by
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which the present deterring influence which attended an execution should be preserved, while the demoralising influences which must necessarily accompany the making of the violent death of a fellow-creature a public spectacle should be avoided, he thought their Lordships would be of opinion that such a change would be a wholesome and desirable one. He need not argue that great evils arose from the present system. Whether it was attended by a corresponding good was another question. The great moralist Fielding, whose opinion was founded upon his experience as a police magistrate, had declared that he had come to the conclusion that one of the main causes of the increase of crime in the metropolis, especially of robberies, was the moral effect of the spectacle of a public execution, and the way in which among the world a man was, if he died what they called "game," elevated to the rank of a hero. Dramatists, when they wished to produce a moral effect by the death of one of their characters, did not exhibit that death upon the stage, but relied rather upon a narration of the circumstance attending it than upon the actual exhibition of the termination of life. Nor did he believe that any of their Lordships would send their son to a public execution with the view of deterring him from the commission of crime. In America, where the English system at first prevailed, there had been substituted for it a mode of carrying executions into effect before prescribed witnesses, with a sufficient showing of the man who was to suffer, and sufficient provision for their knowing that he actually suffered death; and he (the Bishop of Oxford) had been informed by an eminent citizen of the United States that, although there was at first much prejudice against this system, he did not believe that there was at present in America a single person who would wish to return to that which it had superseded. A similar system had for many years been pursued in Prussia, and there was at present before the Lower Chamber of the kingdom of Bavaria a measure proposed by the Ministers for the introduction of such a system into that country. If public executions were a means of deterring from crime, their horrors ought to be exhibited to the fullest extent; but so far was this from being the case, that the whole course of recent legislation had been to diminish the horror of attending them. These facts showed that there was a probable reason

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for believing that a change might be made which would secure all the benefits of a public execution, without the evils of the present system. These evils were not confined to so hardening men that they came to regard the death of a fellow-creature as the occasion on which he should exhibit a miserable spirit of obduracy and hardness. There was a wholly different class of evils attending the present system, and arising from the fact that it every year became more difficult to carry into effect the last sentence of the law in cases in which it ought to be carried out. This was a most important consideration. There could be no greater evil in criminal legislation than to have severe penalties fitfully carried into effect. The more you reduced punishment to a certainty the greater would be its deterring influence. As a matter of fact, there had of late years been very few executions of women, even for the very highest offences. It was not for either House of Parliament to examine in detail the cases in which the Royal prerogative of mercy had been extended to criminals. It was of great moment that that prerogative should be reserved truly and really as an attribute of the Crown, to be exercised, of course, upon the advice of the responsible Minister; but he must notice that where in a string of cases of murder, accompanied with every aggravation, mercy was, for no reason which met the public eye, extended to the offender, there must necessarily be held out to the classes disposed to offend in the greatest degree the expectation of escaping the last sentence of the law. Their Lordships would know that it was not without reason that he noticed this. He would not in the least question the exercise of the Royal prerogative, but he must say that he was wholly unable to see why in some cases mercy had been extended to the offender. When a woman appointed a child of five years old to meet her at a certain place, and there dyed her own hand in its blood, with the deliberate malicious intention of thereby inflicting a wound upon the mind of its father, he could hardly conceive a stronger case for the forfeiture of life, if life were in any case to be forfeited to the law. The object of punishment was to deter from crime, but this could not be done unless we declared that by the ordinance of God civil society was to punish the criminal in His behalf. The very foundations of civil society rested upon the declaration that it was God's institution, and our right to
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punish was based on the same foundation. The civil magistrate bore the sword on God's behalf. If the necessity of making the last penalty of the law a mere spectacle created great difficulty in carrying the sentence into effect in cases where it ought plainly to be carried out, their Lordships would make themselves responsible for that accidental removal and accessory to the fitful execution of the law, unless they inquired into the nature and extent of that necessity. Another question might arise—whether the present mode of execution was the best; but that would be merely incidental. The right rev. Prelate concluded by moving "That a Select Committee be appointed to take into Consideration the present mode of carrying into effect Capital Punishments."
LORD CAMPBELLconcurred entirely in the sentiments of the right rev. Prelate. He had long felt the great evil of public executions. They had been described by Fielding and another novelist not inferior to him, Mr. Charles Dickens, and he hoped the efforts of the right rev. Prelate to mitigate those evils would be crowned with success. Still very great evils might arise from private executions. There was a strong feeling against them in the public mind. He remembered, when in the House of Commons, that a proposal to substitute private for public executions was brought forward by Mr. Rich, who thereby incurred great obloquy. It was said that he wished to smother the criminal or to poison him—in fact, that he would open new scenes of horror which would excite the universal indignation of the country. The proposal met with no sort of support. No doubt there had since been a great alteration in public feeling. Private executions had been introduced into America with good effect. He was not prepared at present to give any distinct opinion of his own upon the subject, but he thought there ought to be an inquiry, and it might, perhaps, turn out that means could be devised to obviate the great objections which were at present made to private executions. It was said that the public would never be convinced, if executions were private, that sentences had been carried into effect. In the case of Governor Wall, the governor of Goree, who was convicted—improperly convicted, in his opinion—of the murder of a soldier, the public feeling was ferociously strong against him; and, as the Government were reluctant to carry the sentence into effect, it was said that if executions had been

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private, some device would have been resorted to, and that he never would have been executed. If the Committee had been moved for with the intention of substituting some other instrument of punishment—the guillotine for instance—he should not have supported it.
LORD REDESDALEsaid, that, though fully aware of the great evils of public executions, he was not so completely convinced by the right rev. Prelate's argument as to admit the necessity of a change. It would be extremely difficult, for instance, to substitute private for public executions in political offences. Much, however, might be done to lessen that feeling of morbid excitement which the spectacle seemed to excite in certain low minds. Means might be taken to conceal the struggles of the criminal from the view of the spectators, and to shorten those struggles when they were likely to be long. The effect of the non-execution of women for the murder of their children, and the consequent encouragement in the minds of a certain class of women, that this was an offence which would not be punished by the last sentence of the law, could not have escaped the attention of any one who was in the habit of reading the daily papers. Scarcely a day passed but there was an account of some woman having murdered her offspring in one part of the country or the other. He believed this arose in a great degree from the desire evinced by judges, juries, and all concerned in the trial to get these women off upon some subterfuge, and from the fact that there had not been a single instance, he believed, for the last few years of the execution of a woman for this offence, even when of the most aggravated description.
THE MAEQUESS OF LANSDOWNEsaid, he should not have consented to the appointment of this Committee if he had thought it was the intention of the right rev. Prelate to substitute private for public executions. He believed it might be very possible, by a different mode of executing the sentence of the law, to produce a greater impression of certainty about it than at present existed in the public mind; for the tumult, the confusion, and the disgraceful circumstances which attended a public execution, and which the right rev. Prelate had described, did sometimes cause a great doubt to exist amongst the lower orders, whether the proper person had really been put to death. He remembered that at a time when he was a
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schoolboy it was very commonly rumoured that a celebrated criminal, Dr. Dodd, who certainly was put to death, had never been executed at all, but that some appearance of an execution only had taken place; and he quite remembered having heard it said, again and again, that Dr. Dodd had been seen walking the streets of London ten or twenty years after the time when he was supposed to have been executed. In this manner it had happened that the improper publicity of the spectacle had rather served to counteract the proper effect of a public execution, the real publication of the proceeding. He thought the House and the public were very much indebted to the right rev. Prelate for bringing forward this subject, for he had never heard any one express a doubt of the mischievous effects of the existing practice; and he was sure that a more proper and impressive mode of carrying public executions into effect might well be devised. As for the particular mode of putting the criminal to death, that was another question, which he would not then discuss.
VISCOUST DUNGANNONthought every right-minded and reflecting man would be disposed to thank the right rev. Prelate for calling attention to this matter. Recent events had proved beyond doubt, that instead of affording an awful warning, these exhibitions only rendered the vulgar mind more callous and more hardened. It was necessary for the public to know that the sentence had been executed; but there was a middle course between an absolutely public execution and an execution conducted altogether in private and in a secret manner, which would be repugnant to the feelings of Englishmen. The right rev. Prelate had touched with great propriety on the circumstances connected with some sentences for murder lately passed and not carried into effect. Those cases had occasioned great astonishment, no doubt; and there was another case, within his own knowledge, of a most coldblooded and deliberate murder committed by two women upon another female; one of them was convicted on the evidence of her accomplice, and the Judge who tried the case at Downpatrick said it was a very aggravated case; but he had since been given to understand that she had been reprieved by the Lord-Lieutenant. Again, there was that fearful case which had been alluded to, of a mother who deliberately inveigled her own child into a cellar, and destroyed her by cutting her throat there,

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but whose sentence had been commuted. He agreed with the noble Lord that many of the child murders we heard of were to be attributed to the fact that few convictions for such an offence were followed by executions. Where a crime had been committed which rendered the person amenable to the punishment of death—and especially in cases of murder—the instances ought to be few, rare, and exceptional in which it was not carried into effect; but at present it was the contrary.
THE BISHOP OF OXFORDexplained that he had not intended to express any opinion in favour of any particular mode of putting a criminal to death: indeed, he thought there might be other modes of execution more humane than that which was in use; but he should object exceedingly to any one which involved the shedding of blood. The noble Marquess had mentioned the case of Dr. Dodd as one which left a great feeling of uncertainty among the people as to the fact of his execution; but another remarkable instance of the same kind was the well-known case of the Duke of Monmouth.
On Question, agreed to. Committee named.

BANKRUPTCY (SCOTLAND) BILL.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR,in moving the second reading of the Bill, said that it had been introduced by the Lord Advocate in the other House. Its purpose was to consolidate the existing statutes, and to effect certain amendments in the law. One of its objects was that in Scotland the distinction between bankruptcy and insolvency should be done away with, so far as to apply the law of compulsory distribution of the property to any one becoming insolvent, whether he were a trader or not. Another object was to provide what should constitute an act of bankruptcy, and that when a person became bankrupt in England he should thereby also be deemed bankrupt in Scotland. It was at present necessary in Scotland, in order to obtain an adjudication of bankruptcy, to apply to the Court of Session; but a co-ordinate jurisdiction would by this Bill be given to the sheriffs, answering to the District Courts of Bankruptcy in England. The Bill proposed fourthly, that whereas the administration of insolvent estates was now vested in trustees, and liable to some abuses, there should be an officer, called the Accountant in Bankruptcy, like the Official Assignee of the
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English system, whose business it should be to control and look into the accounts of all insolvents and bankrupts.
Bill read 2a (according to Order).

TICKET-OF-LEAVE SYSTEM.
VISCOUNT DUNGANNONsaid, that he had placed a notice on the paper having reference to the evils of the ticket-of-leave system; he, however, now appeared before their Lordships under some difficulty. Some time ago he had asked Her Majesty's Government whether, after all the revelations that had taken place, they intended to alter the system? And he was told in reply, that the system could not be altered without an Act of Parliament, and that therefore it must be proceeded in. Since that time the ground had been completely cut from under the supporters of the existing system; for a noble Earl (Earl Stanhope) had undertaken to move that the whole subject should be referred to a Select Committee, which seemed to be promised by the Government; no time, however, had been fixed for naming it. He believed that the system of granting tickets of leave was a serious and growing evil. Its bad effects had been experienced in all parts of the country, and the complaints against it were almost universal. Some supposed that giving a man a ticket of leave was conferring a boon upon him; but the very reverse was the fact. He was regarded as a man at liberty upon sufferance merely, liable at any time to undergo the remainder of his sentence; he was taunted by his fellows, and could get no employment; while it was notorious that men who had been sentenced to long periods of transportation had returned to this country under the ticket-of-leave system after two or three years' penal servitude. If criminals were to be released after a short period of imprisonment it would be much better to send them forth as free men altogether, without any ticket of leave; let them consider themselves absolved from the rest of their sentence, and, although they might remain to and under the vigilance of the police, the community would imagine that they had received a full pardon for their good conduct. Such a person might still be subjected to the consequences of being again convicted by being sent out of the country if he was found not to have deserved the lenity extended to him. Unless some decided steps were speedily adopted, the Session would pass away without anything being done; but he

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should not press his Resolution if he were assured that a Select Committee would soon be appointed to whom the question could be referred. It was absolutely essential for the public good that some change should be made. He had received a return from the head constable of Liverpool, which showed that during the last sixteen months, out of sixty-eight persons who had obtained tickets of leave, and who were known to the police of that town, no fewer than sixty-six had again been committed for trial. Such was one instance out of many of the evil consequences of the present system. He hoped, therefore, that some member of the Government would give him an assurance that no delay would take place in the appointment of a Committee of Inquiry; if not, he should consider it his duty to press the Resolution of which he had given notice.
Moved, to resolve—
"That Experience has proved the present System of granting Tickets of Leave to Convicts to be injurious to the interests of Society, dangerous to the Security of Property, and tending to the increase rather than the Diminution of Crime; it is therefore most important and desirable that Her Majesty's Government should take the Matter into their serious Consideration, and devise some Means, either by Providing Employment for Convicts so released at home or in the Colonies, or otherwise, of relieving the Public and the Country from a most fearful and growing Evil."
LORD BERNERSwas sorry to hear that his noble Friend did not intend to press his Motion. From his own experience, and from all he had learned, he felt satisfied that the ticket-of-leave system had totally failed. He believed that the system had been the parent of a great number of additional offences. At Leicester he was informed that a larger number of ticket-of-leave convicts had been again convicted, of crime than appeared to be known to Her Majesty's Government.
The DUKE OF ARGYLLassured the noble Viscount that there was no disposition on the part of the Government to throw any obstacles in the way of an inquiry into the operation of the ticket-of-leave system. The question was now in the hands of Earl Stanhope, who had postponed for a certain time the nomination of his Committee, the appointment of which was not only not opposed, but even urged upon him by members of the Government as well as by other noble Lords, because a precisely similar inquiry was now in progress before a Select Committee of the other House.
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But the noble Earl intended to proceed with his Committee, and certainly the Government would offer no opposition to him. The noble Marquess opposite (the Marquess of Salisbury) had complained the other day that he (the Duke of Argyll) had quoted a Report which was not in the hands of the other Members of the House; but the maps and tabular statements were fast approaching completion, and the Report would speedily be placed in their Lordships' hands. He must, however, remind the noble Marquess that Reports which showed the working of the ticket-of-leave system from its introduction in 1853 to the end of 1854 were before the House, and they proved that, in the four or five prisons to which they related, the proportion of recommittals to that of convicts released on tickets of leave was very small. In many cases satisfactory information had been received that ticket-of-leave men were obtaining honest and industrious livelihoods, and there was evidence to show that in some instances they had relapsed into crime, in consequence of the difficulty they experienced in obtaining employment. It appeared from a return which had been laid upon the table of the House of Commons, and which would be embodied in Colonel Jebb's Report, that the total number of convicts liberated on tickets of leave since the commencement of the system was upwards of 5,000, while the number of recommitments had only been 420. He did not mean to say that it was not desirable, so far as the people of this country were concerned, that convicts should be sent to distant colonies; but at present such an arrangement was impracticable, and they must therefore do their best with convicts at home.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYwas understood to say, that the results of Colonel Jebb's Reports, which had been published in the newspapers, scarcely bore out the statement of the noble Duke, and that he thought it was rather unfair that the noble Duke should take credit for the success of a system upon the authority of documents which were not upon their Lordships' table. He believed that the evils of the system would be considerably lessened if notice was given to the police when ticket-of-leave men were sent back to the country. It was said that such a system would prevent these men from obtaining employment; but he complained that no attempt had been made on the part of the Government

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to provide persons in such a situation with work if they were unable to obtain it in any other way. The consequence was, that it was impossible to take up a newspaper without finding accounts of ticket-of-leave men being charged with crimes; and the effect of the ticket-of-leave system was to create an impression throughout the country that sentences passed by the Judges would not be carried out, and that crime might be committed without danger of punishment. He feared that if his noble Friend (Viscount Dungannon) forbore to press his Motion, nothing would be done with reference to this subject during the present Session.
THE DUKE OF ARGYLLsaid, that the Blue-books already upon the table showed the working of the ticket-of-leave system for upwards of a year. It appeared that at Portland Prison 331 prisoners had been discharged with licences to the end of 1854, of whom only four were returned to the prison with their licences revoked. At Dartmoor Prison, up to the same period, 467 prisoners were liberated on tickets of leave, and only three of these convicts were sent back to the prison in consequence of their licences having been revoked. The chaplain stated that he had heard of five more who had become inmates of prisons, but that he was daily receiving letters stating that men who had been discharged on tickets of leave were doing well, and were obtaining an honest livelihood. From Portsmouth Prison 358 convicts had been discharged on tickets of leave, only one of whom had been returned to the prison with his licence revoked, and satisfactory accounts had been received, directly or indirectly, of the conduct of many of the released prisoners. He (the Duke of Argyll) had never asserted that the ticket-of-leave system had been entirely successful, for a sufficient time had not elapsed since its introduction to justify any conclusion as to its efficiency, but, so far as the experiment had been tried, there was every reason to hope that it would ultimately succeed.
VISCOUNT DUNGANNONsaid, that, if the noble Duke would cause inquiries to be made of magistrates in agricultural districts and in populous manufacturing towns, he would find that the results of the ticket-of-leave system were of the most fearful and mischievous character. He hoped that an inquiry would be instituted on the subject without any unnecessary delay, and that a Committee would
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be named soon after the Whitsuntide recess. If such a course was not taken, he should deem it his duty to agitate the question until it received the consideration to which he thought it was entitled, and which the public security demanded. For the present, however, he was content to withdraw the Motion of which he had given notice.
Motion, by leave of the House, withdrawn.
House adjourned to Monday the 19th instant.