Lords Sitting of 23 June 1862

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS.—1a West India Incumbered Estates Acts Amendment; Merchant Shipping Acts, &c. Amendment; Salmon Fisheries (Scotland); Sale of Spirits; Artillery Ranges; The Queen's Prison Discontinuance; Bleaching and Dyeing Works Act Amendment.
2a Jurisdiction in Homicides; Discharged Prisoners Aid.
3a Oxford University; Retiring Pay, &c. (British Forces, India); Universities (Scotland) Act Amendment.

COURT OF CHANCERY—ORDER RESPECTING PRINTING. — PETITION.
LORD BROUGHAM presented a Petition of Law Stationers, Law Writers, and Copying Clerks of London, praying for the Repeal of an Order of the 16th of May last respecting Printing. The noble and learned Lord said, that the Petition was signed by upwards of 1,000 law writers and stationers, among whom was a member of a firm which had been established upwards of 120 years as law stationers. The Petitioners complained of the recent Order issued by the Lord Chancellor, with the sanction of the Master of the Rolls and other Chancery Judges, directing that affidavits and depositions to be used in the High Court of Chancery should henceforth be printed under the superintendence of the Clerk of Records and Writs; and, further, directing that the expenses of such printing should be paid out of the same fund and in like manner as office copies of affidavits under the existing practice, namely, the Suitors' Fee Fund. The petitioners, among whom he was pleased to find several ladies, complained that this Order would be the means of ruining their trade, and deprive them of the means by which they had hitherto supported their families. They pointed out that solicitors would be able to make precisely the same charges on their clients as at present, and that consequently the change, so disastrous to the petitioners, would be of no advantage whatever to the suitors. The Order was, moreover, directly in the teeth of an Order of Lord St. Leonards in 1852, that affidavits and depositions should be written in a clear and intelligible manner, similar to that usually adopted by the law stationers. He thought it his duty to state the case of the petitioners fully, whatever view he might entertain of the prayer of the petition, which was, that their Lordships' House, as it clearly had the right

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to do, would pass a Resolution which would at once have the effect of repealing the Order of the Lord Chancellor and the other Chancery Judges.
Petition to lie on the table.

LANDED PROPERTY IMPROVEMENT (IRELAND) ACT AMENDMENT BILL.

  [BILL NO. 81.] COMMITTEE.
  House in Committee (according to Order)
  THE MARQUESS OF BATHcomplained of time being wasted in the discussion of these petty measures, which Session after Session were introduced. The Bill was intended to extend the powers of several Acts of Parliament, which had not been passed without the most mature consideration.
  THE EARL OF ST. GERMANSremarked, that the former Acts enabled the present owner of a settled estate to borrow of the Government sums, not exceeding £5,000, for the improvement of his property. The measures had worked perfectly well, and under its provisions great improvements had been effected in all parts of the kingdom, and the money advanced had been punctually repaid to the Government. The object of this Bill was to extend the operation of the existing Acts to those districts of Ireland in which distress prevailed, by increasing the lending powers of the Commissioners of Public Works to the additional amount of £3,000 over and above any sums they may have actually advanced, or be authorized to advance, under the provisions of those Acts. One result, it was hoped, would be to afford additional means for the employment of the people.
  After a few words from the Earl of DONOUGHMORE,
  Bill reported, without Amendment, and to be read 3a To-morrow.

THE QUEEN'S PRISON DISCONTINUANCE BILL (1862).

  BILL PRESENTED. FIRST READING.
  THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid, he rose to submit to the House a Bill, which he hoped it would read a first time, though its object was to put an end to one of the most ancient institutions of the country. But he thought their Lordships would agree with him in thinking it was an institution with which they would willingly part when he told them the object of the
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  Bill was to shut up the Queen's Bench Prison. The Prison of which the present building was the representative originated in very early times; it was probably coeval with the Court of Queen's Bench itself. At a very early period there were three principal prisons in London—the Queen's Bench Prison, the Fleet Prison, and the Marshalsea. The Queen's Prison was appropriated to prisoners committed by the Court of Queen's Bench, the Court of Exchequer, and Court of Common Pleas. The Fleet Prison received prisoners from the Court of Chancery; and the Marshalsea from the Lord Steward's Court, the Palace Court, and the Admiralty. The first fruits of the measure passed in 1842 for the abolition of arrest for debt on mesne process was to enable Parliament to reduce the three prisons to one, the Queen's Prison being substituted for the Marshalsea and the Fleet. The present Queen's Bench prison was erected in 1759; it had accommodation for 300 prisoners, and occupied an area of ground between two and three acres in extent. He understood that the value of this space of ground was estimated at between £200,000 and £300,000. It was therefore no mean gift to the nation if a property of this value could be converted to public purposes of greater utility. The sum hitherto voted by Parliament for maintaining this prison was between £3,000 and £4,000 a year, the whole of which would ultimately be saved to the country; although their Lordships were well aware that a measure of the kind could not be taken unaccompanied by some allowances and continuances of pay, which would prevent the whole of the money being at once available to the public exchequer. For the power of shutting up the prison they were indebted to the Bankruptcy Law Amendment Act of last year, the object of which was really to abolish imprisonment for debt, unless that debt were contracted fraudulently. How effectually the Act had accomplished that object might be seen from a comparison between the state of the three prisons in Middlesex and within the precincts of Westminster, in October, 1861, and at the present time. On the 1st October, 1861, when the Bankruptcy Amendment Act came into operation, the aggregate number of persons imprisoned for debt in the Queen's Bench, Horsemonger Lane, and Whitecross Street prisons was 324. By a return made on Saturday last it

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  appeared that in the Queen's Bench-omitting debtors who were confined for having contracted debts fraudulently, and omitting also insolvents who had been remanded by the Insolvent Debtors Court—consisting together of about fourteen persons—the number of prisoners for debt was six or seven; in Horsemonger Lane Gaol two; and in Whitecross Street fourteen or fifteen; and some of these would have been discharged but for the clause introduced into the Bankruptcy Act, that non traders should not be entitled to discharge until after two months' imprisonment. Their Lordships would therefore see that the necessity for continuing the Queen's Bench had entirely ceased. The object of the present Bill was to transfer the few prisoners therein confined to Whitecross Street Prison, where there was admirable accommodation for a much greater number of persons than in all human probability would ever be confined there for debt. Their Lordships were probably aware that even the present number of persons in the Queen's Bench would not have been so large but for the practise which had been introduced—he could hardly tell why—under which any debtor in any prison throughout the country might be removed by writ of habeas to the Queen's Bench. Prisoners often availed themselves of this privilege, because in the Queen's Bench, owing to the spaciousness of the buildings, they had amusements—such as playing at ball and other games, by which time was wiled away—and he feared these allurements sometimes had led men to prefer imprisoment to making a discovery and surrender of their property for the benefit of their creditors. He confessed he had much pleasure in presenting this Bill to their Lordships as the first fruits of the Bankruptcy Amendment Act; and he might add, that when the Insolvent Debtors Court was closed, as it would be in a few days, even the present number of prisoners would be reduced; and, meanwhile, the Bill which he now asked leave to introduce would, he hoped, effectually accomplish the end desired.
  The noble and learned Lord then presented "A Bill for the Discontinuance of the Queen's Prison, and Removal of the Prisoners to Whitecross Street Prison."
  THE EARL OF DERBYreminded the noble and learned Lord that he had stated that the site of the Queen's Prison was to be appropriated to public purposes, but he
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  had forgotten to inform them what those purposes were to be.
  THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid, he had entertained a sanguine hope that it would be possible that the site of the prison might have been made available for the purposes of St. Thomas's Hospital. He was sorry to say, however, there might be impediments in the way of so desirable an object, and he had therefore in the Bill merely placed the area and the building in the usual manner at the disposal of the Board of Works and the Government.
  Bill read 1a [Bill 115].

JURISDICTION IN HOMICIDES BILL.

  [BILL NO. 98.] SECOND READING.
  Order of the day for the Second Reading read.
  EARL DE GREY AND RIPON, in moving the second reading of the Bill, said, their Lordships would remember that a murder had been committed recently by a soldier, and that before the murderer could be tried at the ordinary assizes two or three similar outrages were committed. Persons competent to judge of the feelings of the men who had committed these offences, believed that they had been a good deal encouraged to commit them by the long period which had elapsed before the first offender was brought to justice, that these crimes had become almost a fashion, and that they would have been prevented if there had been a speedy and ready mode of punishing the first offender. Abroad, as their Lordships would probably be aware, offences of this description, committed by soldiers, would be dealt with by court-martial; but in this country the offender was handed over to the civil tribunals. Important constitutional principles were involved in that state of the law, and the Government did not consider it desirable to make any change in that respect. As their Lordships were aware, at the time of the Palmer poisoning case an Act was passed providing for the removal of the offender from the county in which the offence was committed, and for bringing him up to London to be tried at the Central Criminal Court, which sat very frequently. The provisions of that Act, the 19 Vict., c. 16, could not be made available in this case, because it required that a Bill should be found by a grand jury before the prisoner could be transferred to the jurisdiction of the Central Criminal Court. Of course, if it were necessary to

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  wait for this, it would be necessary to wait for the assizes. The Government, therefore, proposed to deviate, to some extent, from the provisions of that Act, and the Bill proposed to confer upon the Court of Queen's Bench in term time, or any Judge of the Superior Courts in vacation, upon the application of the Secretary of State for War, upon his certificate in writing that it would contribute to the maintenance of good order and military discipline if a prisoner under the Mutiny Act charged with any murder or manslaughter were indicted and tried at the Central Criminal Court, power to order the prisoner to be tried at that Court.
  LORD CHELMSFORDsuggested that an alteration in the preamble would be required, as it appeared that there was to be no distinction between cases of murder and cases of manslaughter.
  After a few observations from the Duke of MANCHESTER, the Earl of DONOUGHMORE, EARL DE GREY, and Lord CRANWORTH,
  Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Friday next.
  House adjourned at a quarter past Six o'clock, till To-morrow, half-past Ten o'clock.