§ Order of the Day for the Second Reading, read.
§ THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE, in moving that the Bill be now read the second time, said that its object was to amend the law so as to punish the falsification by clerks, officers, servants, and others, of their employers' accounts and documents; and for that purpose it declared that any such person who wilfully and with intent to defraud should destroy, alter, or mutilate any such books, writings, or documents, or should make false entries, or otherwise falsify them, should be guilty of a misdemeanour, and be liable to penal servitude for seven years, or to two years' imprisonment, with or without hard labour. As an example of the necessity for such legislation, he might instance a recent case, where the manager of a large banking firm, being in difficulties, transferred the money of a client to his own account. A prosecution was instituted, and the case was clear, but a conviction was impossible. Similar cases had occurred before, and the present Bill, which had obtained the 1005 assent of the Law Officers of the Crown, and had passed the other House without amendment, would, it was hoped, prevent these offences.
§ Motion agreed to; Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed to a Committee of of the Whole House, on Monday next.