Lords Sitting of 23 June 1873

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS—First Reading—Drainage and Improvement of Lands (Ireland) Provisional Order (No. 3)* (166); Tithe Commutation Acts Amendment* (171).
Committee—Report—Metropolitan Commons Supplemental* (110); Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 5)* (154).
Third Reading—Sites for Places of Religious Worship (159); Elementary Education Provisional Order Confirmation (Nos. 4, 5, and 6)* (135, 154, 157); Grand Jury Presentments (Ireland)* (158), and passed.
Withdrawn—Children's Employment in Dangerous Performances (162).

ARMY—HALF-PAY OFFICERS—"THE ARMY LIST."

  QUESTION. ORDER.
  THE EARL OF ALBEMARLEdesired to ask the Under Secretary for War a Question of which he had given him private Notice—namely, Why the Gene-
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  ral Officers on half-pay of their regimental commissions had been displaced from their usual position in The Army List, and placed among officers of greatly inferior rank. It happened that he was one of the unfortunate persons so treated; and he at first supposed himself somehow, without sentence of court-martial, cashiered; but, after looking vainly through 747 columns of officers' names, he came to a retired Lieutenant of Marines, and on the following page found the names of himself and officers of much greater merit. Half the half-pay officers were mentioned in the natural place, and he was at a loss to know why the alteration had been made?
  THE DUKE OF RICHMONDrose to Order. Although he was very unwilling to interpose between the noble Earl and the House, still he could not help venturing to remind the noble Earl that it was an understanding between the two sides of the House—and a very good and useful understanding—that no matter of importance should be brought forward without public Notice given, except in cases of great emergency. The question to which the noble Earl had commenced to allude was one of importance, but it was not one of sufficient emergency to require the dispensation of the usual Notice. Many of their Lordships would probably like to say something on the subject, and it was only right that they should get notice of its introduction. He confessed that he was one of those who would like to have the opportunity of discussing this and similar proceedings of an unprecedented character, which bad been the result of recent arrangements of the War Department.
  THE MARQUESS OF RIPONsaid, he concurred with the noble Duke who had just spoken in thinking the matter one of importance, and that the most convenient course would be to give proper Notice of the Question.
  THE EARL OF ALBEMARLEwas altogether in the hands of the House. If the noble Duke or any other of their Lordships with less nervousness than himself would make a substantial Motion respecting the subject on the Paper it would receive his support. But he might, perhaps, be allowed to just remark—
  EARL STANHOPE: I desire to appeal to your Lordships on behalf of the rule which we all have from time to time

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  found so convenient. It is of great importance to both sides of the House that this rule should not be departed from except in cases of great urgency. I remember that on one occasion many of your Lordships were deprived of an opportunity of joining in an important question in connection with the Alabama Claims merely because there was only a private Notice given, and the Peers in general had no idea of the intended object when the Mover rose.
  THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNEconcurred in all that had been said in support of the rule of the House which required Notice to be given of all Questions:—but as private Notice had been given to him, and the inquiry had been made, he thought he might as well reply to it at once. The reason why the names referred to had been removed from the place they had hitherto occupied in The Army List was this—When The Army List was revised it was thought desirable to keep the effective and the non-effective portions of the Army separate, and in the new arrangement the General Officers on half-pay were placed at the head of the list of Non-Effective Officers. This arrangement was adopted on the authority of the Secretary of State fop War and with the concurrence of His Royal Highness the Commander-in-Chief.

  SITES FOR PLACES OF RELIGIOUS WORSHIP BILL—(No. 159.)
  (The Lord Romilly.)

  THIRD READING. BILL PASSED.
  Bill read 3a (according to Order) with the Amendments.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYmoved Amendments by which "burial places" and sites for parsonages disconnected from churches were included among the purposes for which land might be conveyed.
  Clause 6, which declares the Act not to extend to Scotland or Ireland.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYmoved to omit the words "or Ireland."
  LORD HATHERLEY (for Lord ROMILLY)assented to all the Amendments except this which proposed that the Bill should extend to Ireland. That was an entirely new proposition, and to bring it forward now on the last stage of the measure was not judicious. Besides, it was not known that this Bill would be
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  acceptable to the people of Ireland. He believed that this Amendment would endanger the passage of the Bill.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYsaid, he did not wish to press this Amendment in opposition to the noble and learned Lord, although he did not see that there would be any objection or difficulty in applying the Bill to Ireland.
  Amendment withdrawn.
  Other Amendments agreed to.
  Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.

  CHILDREN'S EMPLOYMENT IN DANGEROUS PERFORMANCES BILL.
  (The Lord Buckhurst.)

  (No. 162.) SECOND READING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading, read.
  LORD BUCKHURST,in moving that the Bill be now read the second time, said, that last Session he introduced a Bill similar to the present, and it was read a second time. He was afterwards induced to withdraw it, partly because the lateness of the Session afforded but little chance of its being considered and passed by the other House but chiefly on the representation of noble Lords that as drawn it might have the effect of interfering with athletic and gymnastic exercises generally. In order to avoid that difficulty the present Bill had been so framed as to be applicable, as far as could be secured, only to children under 12 years of age, and to the employment of such children in any muscular exercise or any performance practised or given by way of trade or for the purpose of gain, whereby limb or life or health of such child might be endangered or injuriously affected. In various parts of the country, as well as in the metropolis, young persons and very young children were constantly employed in performances which exposed their lives to considerable danger. The noble Earl read newspaper reports of some of these performances. One described a performance which had taken place in a music-hall in the Metropolis, where a child about six years of age performed various feats with astonishing coolness and striking neatness and quickness, on a trapeze, suspended from the ceiling, at what most people would call a dizzy height. The little fellow also went through a ceiling-

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  walking performance, which consisted of going forwards and backwards, head downwards, by placing his feet successively in loops. Of course, the report added, he was enthusiastically cheered by the spectators. At Edinburgh there was "one of the most startling performances by a troup of acrobats ever witnessed;" and at another place the performer rode on a bicyle along a wire rope suspended high in the air. Entertainments such as these were not prohibited by present legislation, notwithstanding the great danger which attended them. He thought the sooner they were prohibited the better, in the interest of morality and the public taste. He did not desire in any way to interfere with legitimate athletic and gymnastic exercises, but he thought these exhibitions by adult performers tended to degrade the public sense. What then must be the case when they were exhibited by young boys and girls? He knew he should be met by the objection that unless the training commenced at a very early ago, children could not perform such feats. If so, he said they ought not to be allowed at all. Training commenced almost as soon as the child was born—its limbs were subjected to the most hideous contortions; and even if these tortures were not followed by death, they must be very injurious to the health of those who were subjected to them.
  Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a."—(The Lord Buckhurst.)
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEYthought there was a fatal objection to the third clause, which was the really operative clause of the Bill. In his part of the country children were frequently employed in cutting turnips, a "muscular exercise" to which their Lordships would probably see no objection, but which was attended with the danger of cutting their fingers; and under some circumstances almost any "muscular exorcise" might be dangerous to limb or health. A Bill therefore which prohibited "muscular exercise" in such general terms was likely to produce inconvenient results.
  THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURYsaid, he was fully sensible of the desirability of a measure of this kind, but he was also sensible of the difficulty of so defining the Bill as to make it effective. It was very right to prohibit the performances of children under 12 years
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  of age because they were dangerous to life and limb; but to say that they should not be permitted to perform in public under that age was no real protection to them, because it did not prohibit the training of children under that age with a view to future performances. The fact was that all the horrors connected with acrobatic life were enacted when the children wore of very tender years—often at two or three years. These infants were tied and twisted in every imaginable contortion, and so kept for many hours in order that their limbs might acquire the particular curvatures that might be necessary for some peculiar kind of acrobatic performance. But this Bill would not touch tortures of that description, inasmuch as all these abominations were perpetrated at home and under the secrecy of privacy. What he desired was that their Lordships should read the Bill a second time by way of recognition of the abuses that existed and expressive of their feelings of the expediency of suppressing them, but for his own part he looked for the real remedy for the evil in the vigilance of the School Boards and in looking up children of tender years and putting in force the compulsory powers of the Act in compelling them to attend the schools.
  LORD DE ROSfully agreed that something should be done to put a stop to this barbarous system, but he thought it would be sufficient to pass a Bill which would be confined to professional gymnasts.
  THE EARL OF MALMESBURYsaid, that School Boards would have no authority over children so young as those mentioned—two and three years, this being, to his own knowledge, the age at which they were trained as acrobats by a process which could not but inflict personal injury. The remedy lay in the prohibition of these performances. If children were not allowed to perform in public their parents would not think it worth while to train them.
  THE MARQUESS OF BATHsaid, the employment of children in pantomimes up to a late hour might be deemed prejudicial to health, a phrase which would also apply to children eating plums. The law as to acrobatic performances might be made more stringent.
  THE EARL OF HARROWBY,speaking from his experience as a magistrate, agreed that legislation on this subject

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  must begin at the beginning in an attack on the training of these poor children.
  EARL GRANVILLEsaid, there ought to be an adequate definition of the performances sought to be condemned before a Bill of this kind passed. As it then stood, it would not deal with the private training of children for public exhibition. He therefore put it to the noble Earl whether it would not be better to withdraw this Bill and attempt to obviate the objections to it in a new measure.
  LORD BUCKHURSTsaid, he strongly desired that the principle of the Bill should be affirmed by the second reading. The objections to the Bill—which were principally to the third clause—could be amended in Committee, if the Bill went any further.
  THE DUKE OF RICHMONDdeprecated the second reading of a Bill which was so unsatisfactory in its terms. He thought it would be far better for the noble Earl to withdraw the Bill altogether, seeing there was no chance of passing it this Session, though noble Lords were all agreed as to the desirableness of putting an end to these dangerous performances.
  LORD BUCKHURSTfinally consented to withdraw the Bill.
  Motion (by leave of the House) withdrawn.
  Bill withdrawn.

SPAIN—RELEASE OF THE "MURILLO."

  MOTION FOR PAPERS.
  THE EARL OF CARNARVONinquired whether it is true that, by the decision of the Court at Cadiz, the Spanish steamship "Murillo" has been pronounced free of condemnation, the crew released, and the master deprived of his certificate for only twelve months? and moved for Correspondence between Her Majesty's Government and the Spanish Authorities on the subject. The noble Earl said, that he did not propose to go fully into the matter, since he understood from the Foreign Office that there would be no objection to produce the Papers asked for. He would detain their Lordships only for a few moments, to remind them of the principal facts of the case. During last winter the emigrant ship Northfleet was riding at anchor off Dungeness, in a perfectly still and calm night, when
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  she was run down by a steam ship, which whilst she was sinking steamed away and left her to sink with 300 lives on board. Enquiries ensued and shortly afterwards a vessel named the Murillo arrived at Cadiz, with all the evidence of guilt which under such circumstances could be reasonably expected upon her. She was put under embargo, and now after nearly four months of idle formalities it was reported that the master and ship were virtually absolved, and immunity accorded to a most barbarous and disgraceful act. Some time since he had called the attention of Her Majesty's Government to the circumstances, and he now asked if it was true that the vessel had been released, the crew set free, and the master punished with a years suspension of his certificate? In all the annals of maritime disaster he knew no parallel to it in the case of a ship, fulfilling all the conditions required of her, being run into by another ship, which then escaped with the obvious intention of evading the payment of damages, and if that vessel was the Murillo the decision was one of the most monstrous ever pronounced. He moved for Correspondence between the Government and the Spanish authorities on the subject.
  Moved that an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty for, Copy of Correspondence between Her Majesty's Government and the Spanish Authorities with respect to the Spanish steamship "Murillo."—(The Earl of Carnarvon.)
  EARL GRANVILLEsaid, the Government had received a telegram from Mr. Reade, the British Consul at Cadiz, to the effect that it was reported the Court of Inquiry had come to a decision, though the authorities had not officially communicated it to him, on the ground that the judgment had not yet been confirmed. The report was that the Court held that there was not sufficient evidence that the Murillo came in contact with the Northfleet, and that the ship had been since freed and the crew liberated, the master's certificate being suspended for his not having paid sufficient attention to the ship with which the Murillo had come into collision. It was, of course, not for him to explain or defend this verdict. He had no objection to produce the Correspondence as far as it had yet gone; and was glad to know that neither Mr. Layard nor Mr. Reade was respon-

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  sible for anything unsatisfactory that had occurred.
  THE EARL OF CARNARVONhoped that the Correspondence would be laid upon the Table so that it might be properly considered before the close of the Session.
  Motion agreed to.
  House adjourned at a quarter past Six o'clock, 'till to-morrow, half past Ten o'clock.