CORPORAL PUNISHMENT BILL.

HL Deb 28 March 1900 vol 81 cc547-95

[SECOND READING.]

Order for Second Reading read.

MR. WHARTON (Yorkshire, W.R., Ripon)

Having been fortunate in the ballot, I am enabled to-day to move the Second Reading of the Corporal Punishment Bill. The Bill I introduce to-day is precisely the same as was introduced in 1889 by Mr. Milvain, then a Member of this House, and now Recorder of Bradford. On that occasion the Bill passed the Second Reading by a large majority, namely, 194 to 126.^* I thought it was more respectful to introduce the Bill in this shape to-day, this being the Bill which was dealt with before, and also the Bill that was supported on that occasion by my right hon. friend the Home Secretary. The Bill is two-fold. It is a repealing and an enacting Bill. It is a Bill for repealing a number of powers for flogging contained in former Acts, which will be found in the schedule of the Bill, and it enacts corporal punishment for a number of offences for which it was not inflicted before. It has been the habit, I think, for some hon. Members in introducing Bills to quote various societies and various bodies of men, and in fact to seek the support of such societies. That is not the course I have adopted, for I do not appreciate it. I think the consideration of the Bill should be left to this House, and the House should be able to make up its mind without the recommendation of outside bodies whose deliberations may be affected by a variety of causes, and, in fact, there may be what is known as a certain amount of touting, which is a proceeding I do not know that we approve of. I have not sought the support of any public body of any description whatever. I saw this morning in a newspaper a letter from a gentleman who signs himself the secretary of a league of the existence of which I was not aware until a few days ago. It is called the Humanitarian League. Possibly I have lost something by not being aware of the existence of the league. That gentleman sought to controvert some words of mine when I called attention to the chief object of the Bill, but with regard to that chief object the gen- ^* For Second Reading Debate on the Corporal Punishment Bill, 1889, see The Parliamentary Debates [Third Series], Vol. cccxxxv., page 1437. tleman in his letter says nothing whatever, but deals with other subjects, and never alludes to the speech which I delivered in this House. This is a repealing and an enacting Bill, and I think, under the circumstances, it would be most convenient and respectful to the House if I called attention in the first place to the Bills which it proposes to repeal either in whole or in part. There are three Acts to which I shall call the attention of the House in this connection. I will take first two English Acts, and then I will call attention to an Irish Act. Of the two English Acts one is a comparatively short one, and so I will take that first—the Slaughter-houses Act. The next is an Act well known under the title of the Rogues and Vagabonds Act. The other is a purely Irish Act. With regard to what is called the Slaughter-houses Act, I daresay it will be somewhat new to some Members of this House, but at the present time the law exists that persons convicted of certain offences in connection with the disposal of the skins of horses and other animals may be punished by whipping. I do not suppose that any judicial person, if I may use that word, would award that punishment, but it shows how necessary it is to keep looking into the provisions of old Acts with the object of repealing them so far as time goes on. Now I come to a much more important Act, because it is in force at the present time in many instances, although this particular punishment is not enforced except on very rare occasions—the Rogues and Vagabonds Act. I do not propose again to trouble the House with any of the provisions of the Act. I will cull a few matters from it which I think may possibly somewhat astonish the House and let them know what are the kinds of punishment for which whipping is provided. This is a peculiar Act, and I am glad to see the hon. Member opposite because he knows the Act better than I do. This Act is peculiar in respect that this particular punishment is dealt with in a remarkable fashion. The Court of Quarter Sessions can inflict the punishment without the intervention of a jury. The Court of Petty Sessions tries the individual or individuals under this Act, but when it thinks that the sentence should be greater than that which the Court itself can inflict, it remits the criminal after the expiration of the Petty Sessions sentence to the Court of Quarter Sessions to be further dealt with, and it may inflict punishment in the shape of a longer term of imprisonment in addition to an order for whipping. A person wandering abroad and occupying premises without any visible means of subsistence, a poor unfortunate man who has no means of support, and who lies outside, can, if the justices were foolish enough to do it, be sent to the Court of Quarter Sessions to receive a sentence involving whipping. Another case is when a man leaves his wife and children without the means of support; if the Court thought fit, it could order that man to be whipped. In these days of public subscriptions another case deserves very serious consideration indeed. Any person who is gathering alms can be dealt with under this Act. A good many of us have applied for subscriptions in various ways, and it would be inconvenient to be dealt with under this Act and sentenced to be publicly whipped. There is another offence under this Act—and I am sorry I do not see the right hon. Member for Thanet here. Any man found betting in a public place is liable to be whipped—not such a place as Mr. Hawke and his kindred spirits sought to disestablish, but, as I read the Act, any public place. That would possibly open the eyes of the supporters of the turf. Then we come to that offence for which the punishment of whipping is occasionally tried—that is the very gross and disgusting offence of exposure of the person. I shall have a word to say about that directly, because it is so germane to the subject before us to-day that I think the House may well consider that, when considering the abolition of the penal Act in regard to flogging. I recollect quite well, in my own experience as a magistrate at Quarter Sessions, a man being sent up by the court below to be further dealt with, who was, I should think, almost insane on this matter, although not sufficiently insane to be shut up in a lunatic asylum. That man was in the habit of annoying and disgusting decent women by this beastly passion. When he came before the Quarter Sessions it was clearly shown that he had been convicted more than ten times, and the case was so bad that my brother magistrates felt willing to inflict the punishment of whipping on that man. I had tried no less than four cases of the most abominable indecent assaults upon little children—little children that I had to put on the bench with me. They had been outraged and knocked about and ill-treated in different ways by four different brutes—I will not call them men. I could not order flogging for these men, and I said to my brother magistrates: "I think you will agree with me that when the law does not allow us to inflict the punishment of flogging on men who outrage children in this way, it would be wrong to do it for an offence which certainly is, in my opinion, a minor offence to that for which these men were brought up." I am happy to say they did agree with me, and we inflicted a sentence of further imprisonment on that man, but did not inflict flogging. I think there is sufficient reason for the repeal of the portion of the Act which awards whipping to rogues and vagabonds. I come to another Act, and it is the only other one I will trouble the House with. It is a very important Act, and I am happy to see some gentlemen from Ireland here. It is an Act which many of them possibly, and perhaps law-abiding people generally, have never read and are unaware of. It is an Act of William IV., almost every section of which provides for punishment by whipping in addition to the sentence of imprisonment. Any person who sends any message or letter inciting to riot, or demanding alms, or requiring any person to quit the service of another person, may be once, twice, or thrice publicly or privately whipped. Section 2 provides that any person who inflicts any injury on cattle or crops, or procures any person or incites any other person to commit any injury to cattle or crops, may be ordered to be once, twice, or thrice whipped. I think everybody will agree with me that the punishment of whipping is out of all reason, looking to the offence. We cannot approve of any of those acts, and they ought to be punished according to their degree and extent, but I think the punishment of flogging in that case is absurd. I have quoted three Acts to show the House that at any rate with regard to the repeal of flogging in certain cases common sense demands it. Let me go a little bit further into the offences for which the punishment is inflicted at the present time. I will deal with the matters that the Bill provides for as regards the retention of the punishment—that is in relation to highway robbery, and especially garroting. Many in this House believe to-day, and I thoroughly believe myself, that, in the question of garroting, corporal punishment was at one time considered a deterrent. I will tell the House why I say so. There was, I am sorry to say, about the year 1863 or 1864 an extra ordinary outbreak of garroting in the metropolis. I dare say hon. Members will recollect that in shop windows there were exhibited instruments for self-defence, called knuckledusters. People were almost afraid to walk along the streets. People were afraid to walk across the parks after dark, and so on. Why and how was it that the punishment of the lash came to be inflicted on garrotters? I daresay that is unknown to many. One of the Lancashire Members of this House was garrotted at the Duke of York's Column on his way down to the House, and so when the House—I do not say passed the Bill—rushed the Bill, they were in such mortal fright of their persons that the punishment of flogging was provided for garroting. There is nothing like bringing things home to the minds of men if you want something done. I do not say that they always deal with things in the best possible way. Whether the punishment in that case was a deterrent or not is a question on which different opinions are held. I know that there are some people who deny that it was a deterrent. I recollect in the year 1863 or 1864 going down through Lincoln's Inn with an old friend who is now an eminent judge. He was on his way to the Central Criminal Court. Baron Bramwell on that occasion inflicted sentences of the "cat" on twenty-four or twenty-five men. There is no doubt about this, put cause and effect as you like, that the outbreak of garroting was stopped at that time, and there have been very few cases of garroting since. I was a Member of the House in 1873, and I recollect there was a Bill brought in dealing with a somewhat different subject, and I moved an Amendment to that Bill.^* It dealt with the question of assaults upon children under thirteen years of age. I was then sitting on the other side of the House, when Mr. Gladstone's Government was in office. Mr. Bruce was the Home Secretary, and the House of Com- ^* See debate in Committee on the Seduction Laws Amendment Bill, 7th July, 1873 (The Parliamentary Debates [Third Series], Vol. ccxvi., page 1892.) mons passed my Amendment, but, as it happened to be a Private Member's Bill, it did not get much further. Mr. Bruce said at that time that he did not believe flogging was a deterrent, and he rather challenged me to give him an instance with regard to flogging being a deterrent. I was very glad to be able to do so. I happened to have been on a visit to Colonel Armstrong, the Governor of Durham Prison, and in conversation he told me of a man, a very bad character, who a few days before had been brought to the prison. On his way into the prison he refused to go on, and loitered. The warder tapped him on the shoulder gently, and pushed him forward towards his cell. The man turned round, doubled up his fist, and made as if to strike the warder. He then dropped his hand and went on. Immediately after that, Colonel Armstrong went a round of the cells, and when he got to this man's cell he said, "I saw you attempt to strike the warder," and his answer was this, "I will tell you why I didn't strike him. I know you flogged a gentleman a month ago for striking a warder, and I know that if you flogged a gentleman you would flog me." I think hon. Gentlemen will not say that flogging is not a deterrent. I propose in this Bill to continue the punishment of flogging with regard to the crime of highway robbery and garroting. As to the amount of the punishment, I speak entirely for myself when I say that I do not like serious flogging, nor do I like that floggings should be delayed for a long time, because I feel that you have no right to inflict what to some men would be the most terrible punishment of all—the punishment of anticipation. This Bill aims at the simplification of the law. If this Bill passes, with such Amendments as I myself will gladly welcome, it would result in a great simplification of the law, and instead of having to look into a whole lot of Acts you would have it all in one Act. This Bill applies in the first place to the flogging of juveniles. I believe there is another Bill in another place which is very much on all fours with this as regards the flogging of juveniles with the birch rod. This Bill applies to burglary when committed by persons armed, and it applies to cases of rape. I wish to call the attention of the House to what I have seen and heard. There is a very prominent exception made in the case of rape. I have seen a good many cases tried at assizes, and I have had a good deal to do with the trial of such crimes. I do not believe in single-handed rape, unless drugs are used or the woman is in a state of hysteria. I remember hearing a man get fourteen years penal servitude in a case of rape, and I believe it was no more a case of rape than of pocket-picking. There was another case in which a man got twenty years penal servitude, and I think he was unjustly punished. The man was guilty of immorality, no doubt, and I do not believe there ever was a worse act of injustice than that. There may be cases of single-handed rape, but I do not believe in them. We expressly exclude from this Bill single-handed rape. I say that for the punishment of whipping to be inflicted in cases of rape there must be actual violence shown, or there must be two or more people engaged in it. That will show the House that so far as I am concerned I am wishful to approach this subject in a fair way to the criminal. I want to protect the person charged from any possibility of unfair play. As far as I am concerned I am only too anxious to put safeguards into the Bill which would not only protect a man from punishment of the lash, but also protect him in other ways as well. We know that there is too much of the abominable crime of blackmailing going about. It is absolutely necessary not only to protect him from the lash, but to protect him from punishment other than the lash. The Bill also deals with the crime of indecent assault. In this matter also I have had personal experience as chairman of Quarter Sessions. I do think that if hon. Gentlemen had had half the experience I have had in trying cases of assault upon little children they would see the necessity for what is proposed in the Bill. I have seen little children not higher than my knee brought into Court to tell their sad story, and what are you to do in such cases under the law as it stands to-day? You can only inflict a long sentence of imprisonment with hard labour. There are those who say that the lash is brutalising. No doubt it is. But I have seen a good deal of the inside of gaols, and I cannot help thinking that a long period of solitary confinement is, in the case of an uneducated man with a low type of mind, quite as likely to be brutalising, and indeed more likely to have that effect than a short sentence of imprisonment accompanied by the lash. My belief is that the lash would prove a deterrent in the case of this particular class of criminal. In the case of abominable crimes I can only say that, should the majority of the House prefer to exclude them from the operation of this Bill, I shall be prepared to assent to that course, as really our desire is to secure the power to apply the lash to assaults upon the person. I am not going to weary the House with quotations from authorities, but I would like to remind it that in 1889 Mr. Matthews, in a speech in this House,^* said he believed from his own experience in the criminal courts—and as we know he was no mean authority on the subject—that flogging was a deterrent. He also declared that the law required consolidating, and that is one of the objects of this Bill. Again, Sir Henry Selwyn Ibbetson, a former Under Secretary to the Home Office, gives his support to this Bill, while yesterday, at a meeting of the Society of Chairmen of Quarter Sessions, under the presidency of Lord Cross, another ex-Home Secretary, the principle of this Bill was unanimously approved after a very friendly discussion. I may be met with the argument that a Bill like this is calculated to promote blackmailing. Well, I am prepared to accept any Amendment which would lessen the chance of that. But unless the punishment of flogging is inflicted for outrages upon women and small children, I say the sooner you sweep away corporal punishment altogether the better. These crimes are usually committed by tramps, and how does your present law operate? A woman, rich or poor, while out on a lawful errand is knocked down by a tramp and robbed of her purse and basket. The law says her assailant may be flogged. But if, instead of stealing her purse or basket, he takes what is more valuable to her than life itself, the law says you shall not flog him. I say it is absolutely horrible that such a distinction should be drawn. If hon. Members are so averse to corporal punishment, why have they not brought in a Bill to abolish it?

MR. DILLON (Mayo, E.)

We abolished it in the Army and Navy.

^* May 8th, 1889, See The Parliamentary Debates [Third Series], Vol. cccxxxv., page 1459.

MR. WHARTON

I asked why no Bill had been brought in to abolish corporal punishment in our gaols.

MR. DILLON

I did not say that we had brought a Bill in.

*MR. SPEAKER

Order, order! These questions are out of order.

MR. WHARTON

I say it is a remarkable thing that if so many are in favour of the total abolition of corporal punishment no Bill has for years been promoted with that object. Our sole desire is to protect women and children, and if this Bill does nothing else it surely deserves support. I heard someone say yesterday that the Tories were going to indulge in the congenial task of flogging the working man. I say we are doing nothing of the kind. We are seeking to protect the wives and children of working men against the brutal attacks of tramps. On these grounds, Sir, I ask the House to give this Bill a Second Reading.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. Wharton.)

MR. LLOYD MORGAN (Carmarthenshire, W.)

I think the House will agree that this Bill embodies a very serious proposal; it deals with serious offences, and we ought therefore to scan very carefully its provisions. It seems to me to be a rather regrettable incident that at a time when so much is being done by the Government, as well as by philanthropic agencies throughout the country, to improve and elevate the criminal classes, an attempt should be made to revert to an old and discredited system of punishment, which has been almost entirely eliminated from the Statute-book nearly half a century ago. It will be taken, rightly or wrongly, if the House reads a Bill of this kind a second time, as an indication that Members are of opinion that we should revert to the old system, and that those who administer the law should in their sentences imitate the violence of those whom they condemn. Our best judges have of recent years set a splendid example by the moderation of their sentences, and I do not think it can be doubted that it has had a beneficial effect on the country. Anyone who takes the trouble to examine our criminal statistics will find there has been a steady diminution of crime and a reduction in our prison population. There is one observation which I desire to make, not affecting the proposals so much as their form. An attempt is being made by the Government and by a private Member to legislate in reference to the same subject during the same session. I cannot conceive of a worse kind of legislation nor of anything more confusing. As to the Bill itself, what is the case which the right hon. Gentleman has made out? He has made out an excellent case in favour of repealing a large number of statutes, but in no other respect has he made out a good case. He referred to the Act of 1863, which was passed for the purpose of putting down garroting. He told us that the justification for the passing of that Act was the increase in that particular kind of crime, and he admitted that without such an increase there would be no justification for the Act. But where is the increase in the class of crime with which this Bill deals? When the House of Commons is asked to pass a measure of this character, it ought to be shown that the law, as it at present exists, is unequal to coping with the crime with which the Bill deals. But that has not been shown in this case. Statistics have not been referred to, because they prove the contrary—they prove that the particular class of crime with which this Bill deals is diminishing, and has been diminishing for many years. The right hon. Gentleman the other day wrote a letter to The Times, in which he said that his object was not so much punishment as deterrence, and he added that from his long experience in the administration of the criminal law, he had a strong conviction that whipping would be the greatest deterrent, and would afford the best protection for the wives and daughters of working men who were daily exposed to danger from the brutality of scoundrels. Reading that, one would imagine that the offence of rape was one committed day after day in this country, whereas, as a matter of fact, the highest number of such cases in any one year, for many years past, has been sixty-five. Then the right hon. Gentleman referred to offences committed on children. What are the figures in regard to those? In 1887, practically the first year after the Criminal Law Amendment Act came into operation there were 106 offences committed against children under thirteen years of age. In the year 1890 there were seventy-five, and in 1899 there were seventy-three cases. Had the right hon. Gentleman been able to show that there had been an increase in the number of these cases, he might have convinced some of us of the justice of his proposal. Again, there has been a continual diminution in the number of offences with regard to children over thirteen and under sixteen years of age, and I think with respect to everyone of the offences dealt with by this Bill, with the exception of burglary, there has been a continuous and steady decrease in the number of convictions. The tendency of legislation during the last forty years has been against flogging. In the session of 1898 the Prisons Act was passed and by that corporal punishment was almost entirely abolished. Does anyone suggest that our prisons are not as well managed and that discipline is not as well maintained now as before the almost complete abolition of flogging? In 1894 there were ninety-eight cases of flogging in local prisons; last year there were only forty-four. Again in 1894, thirty-nine floggings were administered in the convict prisons, whereas last year there were only three cases. No one will suggest that anything but a good result has followed the introduction of the new system. The same thing happened in regard to the Army. It was said before corporal punishment was abolished there, that, without flogging, it would be impossible to maintain discipline. Yet as soon as the Act was passed, thanks to the instrumentality of Mr. Parnell and his colleagues, in 1881, the number of courts martial fell steadily year after year. I have here a book by one whose name, I think, will command the respect of hon. Members on both sides of this House. It was written by Lord Roberts, who states that one very painful circumstance stamped itself on his memory. He had been obliged to be present at a flogging parade, the only one, he was glad to say, he had ever had to attend, although the barbarous and degrading custom of flogging in the Army was not done away with until nearly thirty years later. The sight was a horrible one to witness. The parade was ordered for the punishment of two ten sentenced to fifty lashes each for selling their kits. They were fine, handsome horse artillerymen, and it was hateful to see them thus treated. Indeed, one felt it was productive of harm rather than good, for it tended to destroy the men's self-respect and make them completely reckless. What was the result in these cases? No sooner were the two men released from prison than they committed the same offence again. They were a second time tried by court martial and sentenced to a flogging. A parade was ordered, as on the previous occasion; one man was stripped and tied up. The sentence of the court martial was read out, and everything was ready for the infliction of the punishment, when the commanding officer, to the intense relief of every officer present, addressed the men, telling them how distressed he was to find two soldiers thus brought up for corporal punishment twice within a little more than six weeks, but offering, if they would promise not to commit the offence again and to behave better for the future, to remit the flogging part of their sentence. The clemency was evidently appreciated, the men gave the desired promise, and they kept their word. He (Lord Roberts) did not lose sight of them for many years, and he was always gratified to learn that their conduct was universally satisfactory, and that they had become good steady soldiers. Now, probably those who hold the views entertained by the right hon. Gentleman opposite will think that a mistaken way of dealing with the men.

MR. WHARTON

No man has a greater horror of public whipping than I have. That refers entirely to public whipping.

MR. LLOYD MORGAN

The passage refers to the deterrent effects of whipping. That is why I read it out.

MR. WHARTON

It is a very different matter.

MR. LLOYD MORGAN

I do not much care about referring to my personal experience, but I should like to touch upon one case which came under my notice. At the Glamorganshire Assizes, three years ago, a man was convicted, before Mr. Justice Day, of robbery with violence, and was sentenced to a considerable term of imprisonment and to receive forty lashes in two instalments. When the man came out of prison he immediately committed precisely the same offence. I was instructed to defend the man at the second trial, and when I visited him in his cell I found that his one object was, not to avoid another flogging, but to be saved from being sent to penal servitude. The jury declined to convict him of the serious offence of robbery with violence, and merely found him guilty of stealing the money. It is strange that if this form of punishment is so highly beneficial it is not adopted in other countries; but there is scarcely a country in Europe where flogging is allowed—I am not referring to prison discipline—I believe it is not allowed in America, and our colonies have never taken to it. If anything has been proved to be a delusion it is the statement that garroting was put an end to by the Act of 1863. Lord Aberdare, who was Under Secretary at the time that Act was passed, said himself that the results attributed to the passing of the Act had, in fact, been realised before it was passed. In a speech made by Lord Herschell, when he was a Member of this House, he said it was the prevalent opinion that the punishment of flogging acted as a great deterrent in cases of crime with violence, and that it had put down garroting. But if anyone would examine the Returns which had been laid on the Table of the House, it would be seen very clearly that garroting was practically put down before the Act was passed. In fact the statement that the Act was instrumental in suppressing it has been shown over and over again to have no foundation in fact. In 1885 the House declined to sanction this cruel and degrading form of punishment, even in reference to offences against women and children. There was a long debate upon it in that year,^* in the course of which Sir Henry James, Sir Edward Clarke, Sir Farrer Herschell, Sir Horace Davey, and Sir Thomas Chambers all protested against this form of punishment. Now, I have one or two observations to make with regard to the punishment itself. In the first place, it is the most unequal form of punishment that one can possibly conceive. Take the case of two men flogged. Probably the one who feels the punishment the least is the worse ^* See debate in Committee on the Criminal Law Amendment Bill, 31st July, 1885. (The Parliamentary Debates [Third Series], Vol. ccc., page 722.) man of the two. It is not only the most unequal form of punishment, but it is also the most uncertain. Look at the Returns which have been moved for from time to time. There is nothing more prejudicial, nothing which is so injurious to the interests of justice, than that there should be great inequality in sentences passed by judges for the same offence. Returns show that from 1883–1899 Mr. Justice Day ordered prisoners to receive 4,061 strokes with the cat. The Judge who came next is Mr. Justice Grantham, who has ordered 740 lashes. Only about seven or eight judges have ever ordered the lash, and Mr. Justice Day has ordered more than twice as many as all the other judges put together. It comes to this: that if a prisoner is tried the fact whether he is to be flogged depends not upon the gravity of his offence, not upon the amount of brutality he has used in order to carry out his evil intentions, but upon the mere chance of which judge happens to try him. If he is tried before Mr. Justice Day it is perfectly certain he will be flogged, because Mr. Justice Day thinks flogging the right form of punishment. But if he is tried before the Lord Chief Justice, or Mr. Justice Mathew, or Mr. Justice Wright, he is equally certain that he will never have a single stroke, because they have never ordered one. And if he had happened to be brought before Mr. Justice Hawkins also, he would never have got the lash, for that judge before he left the Bench, when asked why he never ordered a flogging, replied, "If you flog a man you make a perfect devil of him." Thus it is a pure matter of chance whether a man is flogged or not. You may pass this Bill, you may authorise judges to order flogging in all these cases, but even then it will depend upon the personal opinion of the judge whether or not he will do so. In order to make flogging deterrent you ought to go a step further, and say that in the event of a man being convicted of certain offences the judge shall be bound to order him to be flogged. You must, in fact, treat these offences on the same principle that you treat murder. In the event of conviction you must allow no option to inflict anything but the one penalty. And, as showing the danger of laying down a hard-and-fast rule, I would point out that in regard to some of these offences you are dealing with professional criminals, who deliberately plan a crime, while in others you have men who act upon the impulse of sudden passion. I see that under the Bill the attendance of the prison doctor and the governor of the prison is required during the time of flogging. What does that mean? It is an unnecessary clause, because the Home Office regulations provide for every safeguard of the kind. But by putting it in the Bill the promoters throw some light on what flogging means. It means that a man may be flogged practically within an inch of his life. I do not believe in this form of punishment, and I shall do all I can to prevent its adoption. In penal servitude there is a chance of reclaiming a man by treating him with kindness and humanity, but by flogging a man is reduced to the level of a brute. I beg to move the rejection of the Bill.

*MR. H. D. GREENE (Shrewsbury)

I desire to raise my voice as far as I can in opposition to a measure which I believe is, in many respects, extremely retrograde and most distasteful to the public at large. The right hon. Gentleman who introduced the Bill based his support upon his experience in the administration of the law. I venture to suggest that I may claim to base my opposition upon experience in legal practice extending over thirty years. I should not like it to be supposed for one moment that I have any sympathy with the criminals who commit these crimes, although I totally differ from the right hon. Gentleman as to what should be the treatment meted out to them. I do not want it to go forth that this Bill is entirely supported by Members on this side of the House. I should like the public to know that we are at least divided upon it. It has too often happened in the past that hon. Members opposite have had to rectify the tendency sometimes exhibited on this side of the House to permit punishments of too great severity. I listened with surprise to the manner in which this Bill was introduced. I should have expected, seeing that it passed a Second Reading in 1889, the right hon. Gentleman would have given some reasons why no Government or no individual has since thought fit to re-introduce it.

MR. WHARTON

It has been reintroduced twice, if not three times since then, but fortunes of the ballot prevented our proceeding with it.

*MR. H. D. GREENE

I accept that statement; but even then, surely if opinion was so strongly in favour of it pressure from inside or outside this House might have induced the Government to give its attention to the subject. No statistics whatever have been quoted to justify the alteration of the law in the direction proposed by this Bill. I must say, too, that when I turn to the Bill itself I am startled to see there is absolutely no principle laid down in the classification of the offences to which this Bill is to apply. No explanation has been given why Scotland is excluded from its operation. The unfortunate Paddy in Dublin and the unfortunate wretch in Whitechapel may be whipped, but the man in Scotland is to go free? What is the reason? Because the Scotch will not tolerate a law of this kind. In an Act passed in 1862, to amend the law with regard to the whipping of juvenile offenders, a clause was introduced providing that no one should be whipped in Scotland for offences against person or property, and the Scotch have enjoyed a complete immunity from whipping ever since. Can anyone contend that there has been an increase of crime in Scotland because of that provision? I think my right hon. friend fairly deserves the criticism made by the hon. Member for West Carmarthenshire, that nothing has been adduced by him to justify the change which he proposes. The Bill introduces an entirely new principle in criminal law. In at least three instances the "opinion of the Court" is to be taken in substitution for what should be the finding of the jury. For instance, the question whether a prisoner is or is not to be whipped—according to the age limit—depends, not upon whether he is proved to be under the age of sixteen, but whether, in the opinion of the Court, he is under that age, and thus a boy who is under sixteen, and looks older, would run great risk of being whipped on the greater scale, while one who is over sixteen and looks younger would have a chance of escaping with the lesser punishment. The right hon. Gentleman has told us he is willing to accept Amendments. I say he ought not to have brought forward a Bill which is so full of errors and so unacceptable, and then ask the House to put it in proper form. Again, there appears in the Bill to be no principle underlying the different offences to be punished in this way. If you examine the schedule of offences you will fail to see that any principle is laid down at all. Some of the most serious offences, some of the most terrible in which violence is involved, some which are odious in the extreme, are altogether omitted, but on the other hand, it is newly introduced with reference to five or six offences, and the punishment of whipping is actually to be administered in cases of first offence. I say that if you are going to introduce the punishment for these offences, it should be limited to the cases of individuals more than once convicted. Now, my main objection to this Bill is one which is largely shared by lawyers who practice in the criminal courts, and it is that the power to impose corporal punishment is given to chairmen of Quarter Sessions. There are a large number of courts of Quarter Sessions in this country. They are some times divided, and two courts sit; whether there are 100 or 200 chairmen of Quarter Sessions I know not, but we do know that while some gentlemen who preside over these courts have had legal experience and training, many have not. The decision arrived at is not necessarily the decision of the Chairman; it may be the result of a vote taken, as I have seen it myself at Quarter Session, among the magistrates as to what is the proper sentence to be passed. I shrink with horror from the thought that there may be a division of opinion among some twenty magistrates, and there may be a majority of only one in favour of flogging. In a matter of this kind there ought to be individual responsibility. In the administration of an Act of this kind there would be no such feeling entertained by the magistrates, as there would be a difference of opinion as to how a prisoner should be punished. I have a great admiration for the labours of many Chairmen of Quarter Sessions, and certainly we have the advantage of knowing three of them who have filled, or are now filling, that distinguished position, for their names are upon this Bill. We hear that the Chairmen of Quarter Sessions, at their meeting, approved of the principle of this Bill, but I would rather an application for this increased power had not been so much supported and brought forward by the gentlemen who are pleading for an opportunity to exercise that power. There is this to be said—that mistakes are made now in regard to these sentences by judges of the High Court, and there will be by this Act a great many more tribunals to make them than there are at the present time. I heard with dismay last week from the right hon. Gentleman below me that one of Her Majesty's judges at the Liverpool Assizes in February, 1899, in one day passed three different sentences on three different prisoners. On each occasion he ordered imprisonment, and on two occasions whipping was to be twice administered, and in the other case it was to be administered three times. It is worthy of note that the extreme severity of the whipping was in each one of these cases remitted by the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary. Is it not a terrible thing to think that one of Her Majesty's judges should have made three mistakes in one day upon grounds which the right hon. Gentleman was unable to acquaint this House with.

*MR. SPEAKER

The hon. Member is not in order in criticising the action of judges. He may refer to their action for statistical purposes, but he is not entitled to question their judicial conduct.

*MR. H. D. GREENE

Then I will say no more upon that beyond pointing out that the fact remains that relief was given in three cases where sentence was passed on the same day. If mistakes may be made by a learned judge of the High Court, are they not more likely to be made by Quarter Sessions all over the country? If that is so, it seems to me that power should not be given to tribunals so numerous and with so little responsibility all over the country. Another reason why I object to this Bill is that it is not a Government measure. If it is a consolidating measure let the Government consolidate, and let us accept their statement of what is consolidated. If it were a Government measure we should have this further ground for confidence, in that we should know the Government must take the responsibility of facing the public opinion of the country as to whether this measure should or should not be adopted, and they would be guided by the best advice from persons on whom they could rely, and whose responsible opinion would probably be accepted by this House. Another reason why I object to the measure is that it is badly drawn, and if it is to be more than a consolidating Bill it ought to deal with a great many other offences. Why is blackmailing, arson, the offence of wife beating or violent assault to be omitted? I can see no reason why these offences are not included, and I have heard none suggested. I think of all the most terrible offences blackmailing is probably the worst, and that is left out altogether. I respectfully say that if this Bill is looked carefully into it will be found to be a measure which on that ground alone should be rejected. But beyond all this I say that Bill is a retrograde measure altogether. If we look a little more closely into the history of corporal punishment than my hon. friend the Member for West Carmarthenshire asked us, we shall see that the whole tendency of Parliament since the present reign commenced has been to abolish the severest and to mitigate the lesser forms of punishment which have been inflicted. If you want to see what happened at the introduction of Her Majesty's reign, look at what she did when she closed the first session of her first Parliament in 1837. You will read the most touching allusion she made to her joy at the fact that capital punishment for several kinds of offences had been abolished, and from that time forward we have been gradually getting rid of barbarous sentences. Since Her Majesty came to the Throne on only four occasions has the punishment of whipping been applied by this House to any offences. The first occasion was the Oxford Act, passed in 1841 or 1842, to punish with whipping persons who struck at or alarmed the Queen herself. Four or five years afterwards another Act was passed to enable persons to be whipped who destroyed works of art in museums. In 1847 this punishment was applied to blackmailers; and in 1863 came the Bill which was to punish persons for the crime of garroting. What was the result of all this? Out of those four instances two were repealed in 1861, when the criminal law was consolidated. Those Acts against blackmailing and the destruction of works of art in museums had only been in force for twelve years, when they were found not to be satisfactory. The Criminal Law Commissioners in 1843 said they did not recommend the extension or continuance of the punishment of whipping, and in 1861, when the great consolidation of the criminal law took place, numbers of those Acts which had been passed in earlier centuries and those which had been passed in Her Majesty's reign were also swept away, and there remain now only two Acts on the Statute Book, which have been passed in the reign of Her Majesty, in which flogging of adults may be administered, and those two are the cases of striking at or alarming Her Majesty, and the other one assaulting with intent to rob or choking, which were covered by the Act of 1863. Those punishments having been repealed, we heard but little more of the question until 1879 and 1880, when the policy of flogging in the Army as a punishment was stopped. In the year 1880 there was a General Election, and I can well recall that at that time several candidates who wished to sit on our side of the House were rejected on the ground of their defence of corporal punishment. I think that no less than three very distinguished persons I could name also met with very great hostility in consequence of their views on this subject. In 1881 it was completely done away with, and in 1882 the Home Secretary for the time being—the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Monmouthshire—was asked on two occasions whether he would not extend flogging to cases of indecent assault, and he said most distinctly no, and he would not listen to it. When the Criminal Law Amendment Bill was brought forward in 1885 the Government on this side of the House did not venture to put in any clause whereby whipping should be administered to adults. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Fast Wolverhampton did introduce an Amendment to apply it in the case of rape, but he did not suggest that it should be applied in minor offences upon women and children. No Government suggested any general extension of whipping after it was abolished in 1861. In 1889 this Bill got its Second Reading, and here we have it again unearthed and dug up by several of my hon. friends, with no better grounds to support it than have just been heard in the opening speech of the hon. Member. The statistics do not show that there is any necessity for this measure. A Return has recently come from Liverpool, where the Chief Constable has stated that there has been an enormous falling off in crimes of violence, and I think I am right in saying that the diminution of the cost of administering justice there will amount to something like £6,000 a year. There is a divided opinion on this matter, and I contend that where there is such a division of opinion upon such a momentous question the opinion of those against should be accepted rather than those for. The present and two last Lord Chief Justices all pronounced against this punishment being extended to cases of indecent assault, and this view has been taken by the highest criminal judges in the land. I do not intend to say more upon this beyond pointing out that if you have judges who will flog and some who will not, the result will be that you will have some juries who will vote for flogging and some who will not. Where a court has this arbitrary power, and it is left to the jury to decide whether or not they will convict, there are numbers of jurymen who, taking strong views like my hon. friend who has moved this resolution, would give no verdict at all, or would even compromise their consciences rather than bring in a verdict of guilty. This is an irrevocable punishment, and so of course is capital punishment, but that is no reason for saying that you are to support a fresh irrevocable punishment. It is an indelible degradation, and for which no compensation is possible. We are told that one great advantage is that it is speedily carried out, and the right hon. Gentleman does not like to have any delay over the matter. Unless there is a great demand for such a punishment we certainly ought not lightly to allow it quickly to be imposed. What demand does the right hon. Gentleman suggest there is? A Return has been given showing that between 1894 and 1898 grand juries in different parts of the country made representations in favour of the power to whip. You will find they are thirteen in number. But do they come from all over the country? They do not. I am speaking from recollection, but I think three of them come from Durham, and in another county they have come twice, and in a third county twice. But still, if frequent, these representations only come from a few places. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman has taken any part in making these representations to the learned judge, or whether they come from any person of distinction there who may have, from the pulpit or elsewhere, advocated such a course, but these representations come three times from Durham. I think if there was a genuine demand for this measure we should have had it represented by the judges in their general council, by grand juries in numerous places, by magistrates' meetings, societies, and charitable individuals, but we have had no such demand. We have had a demand by three chairmen of quarter sessions who are associated with this Bill, and I do suggest that it is a very unfortunate thing to base legislation on no better demand for it than has been suggested. I have a deep personal conviction that this Bill would be contrary to the policy which seems to actuate us in all other matters of legislation. We have during this reign protected animals from cruelty, and we have protected children from cruelty. We have been more merciful in the treatment meted out to our prisoners, and I cannot speak too highly of the readiness with which the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary has met the appeals, made to him for legislation in this direction. I shall listen with very great interest to what the right hon. Gentleman has to say now as to the success of the partial abolition of flogging in prisons in 1898. Last year no less than five times the Home Secretary prevented prisoners undergoing sentences of flogging passed upon them judicially; and I do not think the right hon. Gentleman is likely to allow this kind of thing to take place too freely, judging from the way he has acted in revising sentences. I feel that it would be a terrible blot upon our legislative escutcheon if, at the close of the century, and almost at the close of Her Majesty's reign, we should pass this kind of retrograde legislation. Let us wait for a few more years until a stronger case for such a measure is presented to the House. Such a Bill as this inevitably tends to a very great deal of hostility, and I hope it will be a long time before this House gives a Second Reading to such a measure. I most cordially second the Amendment.

Amendment proposed— To leave out the word 'now,' and at the end of the Question to add the words 'upon this day six months.'"—(Mr. Lloyd Morgan.)

Question proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."

COLONEL KENYON-SLANEY (Shropshire, Newport)

What has struck me on this occasion has been the interest shown by the legal profession in the maintenance of the criminal classes. They seem to consider them in the same light as an over-zealous gamekeeper who wishes to keep up a large stock of game for future sport; that is the underlying tenderness towards the interesting criminal disclosed in the speeches of my legal friends. That is a point of view with which the mere layman is rather out of sympathy. Anything affecting the comfort or the feelings of the criminal is a matter of extraordinary importance to these legal Members. It does not seem to occur to them to approach the matter from the point of view of consideration for those who suffer from the action of the criminals. Members who take that view are anxious to do something to make certain classes of crime less frequent, but I have listened in vain to lawyer after lawyer for any sympathy whatever with the aggrieved class of the community. It is the criminal who is to be treated with the utmost leniency, and the greatest care must be taken not to oppose the measure lest it should prevent his possible recall from criminality into the paths of virtue he has temporarily strayed from. Probably few Members of this House have seen or had anything to do with the infliction of the terrible punishment of flogging, unless they have done so in the capacity of a military officer or as a prison visitor. Those who have seen it as I have look back with horror at the recollection, and no one could approach the question in a more serious spirit than we do. Nevertheless, feeling that so strongly, I still assert that there are cases in which that punishment is not only justifiable, but even wise and proper in the interests of the community generally. I consider that my testimony is worth more than that of a mere outsider. I speak with no desire to undervalue or understate what the punishment means to those who suffer it. I deprecate entirely any assertion that those who support flogging think lightly of it, or in a foolish sense desire lightly to reimpose it. Those of us who are not lawyers recognise that there are certain crimes to which it ought to be applied, because as far as we know it is the only punishment likely to act as a deterrent of those particular crimes. I deprecate any attempt to argue from the abolition of flogging in the Army that flogging is not a deterrent. The whole conditions in the Army, the treatment of the men, and the current of public opinion, combined to bring about the abolition of flogging. The Member for Shrewsbury spoke in what, I think, was rather a whole-cheeked fashion of the value of the opinion of chairmen of quarter sessions. Taking one man with another, on most matters of ordinary common sense, I should prefer the opinion of a Chairman of Quarter Sessions to the opinion of a lawyer of equivalent rank. In the same way a soldier would prefer the opinion of a soldier to that of a naval man of equal rank. It has been too much left out of sight that Chairmen of Quarter Sessions have been very decided in their opinions on this subject, and have made presentations upon it, and otherwise exhibited their sympathy with this Bill in every way in their power. And they represent, infinitely better than the itinerant lawyer travelling from place to place in the exercise of his avocation, the real opinion of the localities they are dealing with, and have a far better knowledge of the social conditions of the neighbourhoods. They understand how far the class of crime most prevalent in their districts can be repressed by a particular punishment. I respect the evident earnestness of the hon. Gentleman who moved the rejection of this Bill, and I sympathise with the view that we ought to be assured that this punishment will only be inflicted for the purpose of correcting an abuse so great that it cannot be dealt with in any other way. The evidence which I have seems to me to show that there are certain crimes to which this punishment ought to be applied, and could be applied with better effect than any other punishment we could devise. It is argued that, taking the country generally, there is a decrease of these crimes. While a general statement of that kind may be true, there may be localities where these crimes are on the increase, and if there are localities where we could put our foot on a most accursed crime, the House ought to hesitate before it refuses to grant the application of a punishment for the purpose of stamping it out. I noticed a letter in this morning's Times, signed "Your Law Reporter," which bears very directly on this issue. I find that these outrages are very serious in their number in the Midland counties, I regret to say, and Staffordshire has an unenviable notoriety in this respect. The calendar for December, 1898, contained the names of thirty-nine prisoners, and of these no fewer than seventeen were charged with offences against women and children. We have heard some very disparaging remarks with regard to certain judges from quarters from which they ought not to have proceeded.

MR. LLOYD MORGAN

I protest——

COLONEL KENYON-SLANEY

I was not referring to the hon. Member.

MR. PICKERSGILL (Bethnal Green, S. W.)

You ought to specify; you are making a very serious charge.

COLONEL KENYON-SLANEY

I decline to accept any ruling as to procedure from the hon. Member. I am sorry that certain reflections have been made on the judges. We ought to accept their opinions as valuable on this question at any rate, and therefore in corroboration of what I have said I will quote the views of one judge. In his charge to the grand jury at Stafford in 1898, Mr. Justice Ridley, after remarking that he had visited several counties in which he found that crimes against women and children were more numerous than any other class of crime, said flogging was a brutal and degrading punishment, and ought to be reserved solely for those who were brutal and degraded. Now, let there be no mistake as to this. I and others who support this Bill only wish this punishment to fall on those who are of brutal and degraded type, and who commit these brutal and degrading crimes. Put in what safeguards you will, but bear in mind that the crime to which we wish to apply this punishment is one which means the destruction of the life and honour of some poor woman or some poor child. My hon. and learned friend expressed a conviction that this punishment should not be inflicted in the case of a first offence, but I say that if the offence is one against the virtue of a woman or child, the offender should not be allowed to escape the lash. I object to this mealy-mouthedness, this desire to shield the criminal at the expense of the com- munity and of the innocent sufferer. The general point I wish to urge is that these crimes prevail, and are increasing in certain localities.

MR. LLOYD MORGAN

Does the hon. and gallant Member mean that there is an increase at a particular time, or an increase spread over a number of years? I admit that in some places there is an increase at a particular time, but you must spread it over a number of years.

COLONEL KENYON-SLANEY

I am not anxious to dispute minor points; I only want to secure adhesion to the principle that, if there is an increase of a particular kind of crime which cannot be repressed by the action of the ordinary law, then it is not unreasonable on our part to seek to impose a punishment which we believe would, check it. You must treat it as an epidemic; you must act on the same principle as we do when there is an outbreak of foot and mouth disease in this country; when such an epidemic prevails we insist on the wholesale destruction of suspected animals, and when the country is free from the disease we do nothing of the kind. In the same way with this particular class of crime. If our ordinary punishments have not the effect of stopping it, then it is only reasonable to look for some form of punishment which will have that effect. We do not advocate flogging because we like that form of punishment, but we do take exception to the statement that flogging is not a deterrent. What are men but grown-up boys, and does not boyhood's experience teach us that it was the chance of getting a flogging which prevented us committing many peccadilloes? I repeat that sufficient weight is not given in this House to the opinions of our grand juries. There could be no body of men more anxious to improve the social condition of the districts in which they live; they are in touch with the feelings of all classes; they know the horror and insecurity of feeling which the prevalence of such crimes causes in the minds of the working classes; they are aware of the desire to have these criminals more firmly dealt with, and when they make their presentments it is not right that hon. Members should pooh-pooh them. I hope that this Bill will be read a second time. We honestly believe there is an immediate need for legislation such as this. Crimes like these are apt to increase when men feel that the punishment to be risked is not so severe as to make the risk not worth running. It is dangerous to allow such a feeling to grow, and I believe that the passing of this Bill would produce a rapid diminution of a crime which at the present moment constitutes the biggest stain on our national character. Sentimentalism is misplaced in these matters, and we must do our best to stamp out an admitted evil by the assertion of that which is right.

DR. FARQUHARSON (Aberdeenshire, W.)

I regard the Bill as unnecessary and retrograde. I came down to the House with an open mind on the subject. I have heard the debate, and my mind has closed with a snap against the proposal, for the paucity of the arguments which have been advanced proves conclusively that no case whatever can be made out for this addition to the law. The evolution of civilisation should carry on onwards and upwards, but this is an attempt to put back the clock. The speech of the mover was apologetic; he offered to change anything in the Bill we may not like, and I am bound to say that the arguments of the hon. Member for West Carmarthen quite knocked the bottom out of the case for the Bill. It has been my misfortune to witness many floggings when that form of punishment prevailed in the Army, and I am convinced that if hon. Members could be taken to a barracks square to witness one administration of this punishment we should hear nothing further of flogging in the Army or elsewhere. And while I am opposed to public floggings I am still more opposed to private ones. What could be more terrible than for a man to be led out on a cold winter morning to be hanged or flogged in the presence of the warders and gaoler, with no one even to whom he can display his bravado? The Bill requires that a doctor shall be present at the flogging. I remember witnessing one flogging. The criminal was duly tied up and then there came the dreadful swish of the lash, the noise of which was partially drowned by the muffled roll of the drums, a device to prevent the possible screams of the unfortunate victim being heard. But I am bound to say I never heard a single sound proceed from the man's lips. Terrible as was the punishment for him, I think it was still more terrible for me on whom rested the responsibility of watching it. After twenty-five lashes had been administered the man's wrists were untied, and I had to decide whether any permanent damage would be done to his constitution if the flogging were continued. How could I or any medical man say at such a time what would be the ultimate effect of the shock to the system? I say it was an invidious and detestable duty to impose on any man, and it is in order to save my medical brethren from having it placed upon them by this Bill that I oppose the further progress of this measure. And it should be borne in mind that this Bill applies to a class of case in which not infrequently hysterical women bring an atrocious charge against a medical man and subsequently withdraw it. We had a case only the other day. Suppose the doctor implicated in it had been condemned and had received twenty-five lashes, he would have been ruined morally and physically, and only too late would it have been discovered that the charge was a trumped up one.

MR. WHARTON

That sort of case is especially excluded from this Bill. Two men must be associated in the crime before a flogging is inflicted.

DR. FARQUHARSON

I do not see how that provision lessens the danger. In conclusion, let me say how much I appreciate the remarks of my hon. friend the Member for Shrewsbury, as to the class of tribunal to which these cases would be referred. I am a professional man; if I want to get legal opinion I go to a lawyer, and if I want medical opinion I go to a doctor. The hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite appears to think that the opinion of country gentlemen and clergymen is better than that of a trained lawyer, but if I wanted my leg cut off I would not go to the hon. and gallant Gentleman; I would go to a trained doctor in Brook Street. If it is so easy to obtain the administration of the law gratuitously, why is it necessary to spend a hundred or two hundred thousand pounds on the judiciary? I want a man trained in his profession. In Scotland we have a better course of procedure. We have no amateur gentleman aping the airs and graces of lawyers; we have no clergymen on the bench, the most pitiless of all people to deal with questions having any practical bearing on Christian charity. In a paper edited by an hon. Member of this House there are pilloried week by week the proceedings of the great unpaid. You have country gentlemen steeped in all the prejudices of their class, sitting on the bench and aping knowledge of a profession in which they have not been trained. In Scotland we have none of that. I have been a J.P. for more than twenty years, and I never have been called upon to act except to vote for the renewal of a licence, and that I daresay I did badly. So convinced am I that I would do the work badly, that as a justice of the peace I have confined myself to witnessing occasionally a signature. County gentlemen have their own avocations, but let us have trained lawyers to administer the law. This Bill would put into the hands of untrained people the administration of a new departure in our law which is dangerous and repressive, and which I hope the House will reject.

*SERJEANT HEMPHILL (Tyrone, N.)

It certainly seems to me a very unusual thing that a Bill seeking to effect an organic change in the criminal law should be brought in in the first place by a private Member, and in the next place should affect Ireland, although there is not a single Irish name on the back of the Bill. The Bill carefully excludes Scotland from its operation but includes Ireland, and on a Wednesday afternoon, without knowing what the views of the Government are on this measure, the House is called on to enact a Bill involving a most serious change in our criminal law. I was somewhat surprised to hear the eloquent and gallant Member who spoke last but one pay such a compliment to the legal members of the House as to tell them that they were the champions of the criminal classes, and that no attention should be paid to their arguments. He went further, and described them as the gamekeepers of the criminal classes. As a member of that rather maligned profession, I repudiate altogether, on behalf of many eminent and learned Members of this House, any such imputation. I believe if you want a man who can enlighten the House, not only as regards legislation, but also as regards morality, you must look for him among the legal members of the House. I assume, however, that the hon. and gallant Gentleman spoke in that rhetorical heat which is sometimes aroused in advocating a bad cause. The hon. and gallant Gentleman is a Conservative, and from the style and tenour of his observations, I imagine he is a Conservative of the old-fashioned school, which has always contributed much, I will not say to the amusement, but to the liveliness of this House, and which many years ago, before most hon. Gentlemen now present were born, was the subject of Daniel O'Connell's famous epigram, which I will not now repeat, about the three gallant colonels of that day. Now as to the Bill—in Ireland happily and certainly there is no occasion for any change in the law. I can speak with some experience in the matter, because I was for many years connected in more capacities than one with the administration of the criminal law in the country. In my earlier days I frequently defended prisoners, for many years it was my duty to prosecute prisoners, and for some years also I exercised the responsible functions of Chairman of Quarter Sessions in one of the largest counties in Ireland, so that the administration of the criminal law came constantly under my observation, and I can assure the House, that, in my opinion at least, and I think also in the opinion of every Irish Member, there is no occasion for any change in the existing law so far as Ireland is concerned. Certainly if this Bill passes Second Reading, which I trust it will not, one of the first acts of the Irish Members in Committee will be to endeavour to expunge Ireland from its operations. In its general tenour and effect the Bill is of a most reactionary, old-fashioned, eighteenth century character. It is literally a rolling back of the tide of public opinion, which has been flowing in the direction of justice and the protection of public rights since the famous days of Romilly and Brougham. We are now asked to return to the time when corporal punishment was inflicted at the discretion of justices; we are asked to go back almost to the days of the pillory and the stocks, when the character of the English people was more or less disgraced by the way in which country justices administered justice. Under the second sub-section, courts of summary jurisdiction can exercise the opinion as to whether a male prisoner is over sixteen years of age—there is no test, merely the sic volo of the bench—and then if he is convicted of an offence punishable by penal servitude or hard labour he can be sentenced to the last. I do not think hon. Gentlemen quite appreciate the extent of this sub-section. Under the Hard Labour Act almost every single offence is punishable by hard labour, and consequently every offence, with one or two exceptions, comes within the operation of this sub-section. The court may not even be a court of Quarter Sessions, it may be a court of Petty Sessions, and you give that court in any remote part of England in bucolic or colliery districts this power. For goodness' sake do not involve poor Ireland in the contumely of being subjected to such a code as this. It is not confined to the particular class of crime to which allusion has been made. The law is sufficient to reach that crime as far as ever it can be reached by law. We are not living in a Utopian state where crime of that character will not occur, but the statistics read by the hon. and learned Member in his most able speech will satisfy every hon. Member that that crime is on the decrease, and that there is no necessity now for altering the law in regard to it. But that is not all. The Bill also provides that when any male person over the age of sixteen is convicted at assizes the court may direct that such person be once, twice, or thrice privately whipped with an instrument specified in the schedule, including, I suppose, a cat-of-nine-tails, by which under a sentence of twelve strokes mine times twelve are given. The crimes included in that sub-section include almost every possible crime a man may be guilty of. In the first schedule almost every crime short of murder is enumerated. What are the grounds laid before the House for any such change? Have we any statistics which would show that any particular reason exists why this Bill should be passed, as seemed to be the case when the Garroting Act was passed? At that time garroting was traced to a number of persons who had returned from transportation, and it was shown that this frightful crime was not a crime affecting the criminal classes in London generally, but had emanated from persons whom penal servitude had made utterly reckless and had completely demoralised. That crime was not put down by the Garroting Act, because, as a matter of history, the garroters were convicted and sentenced by Baron Bramwell before the Act became law. It was the existence of the crime that suggested legislation, but the legislation was too late to apply in those cases, and the crime has not been repeated since except in solitary and desultory instances. Since that time no attempt has been made to apply generally this degrading corporal punishment, and I say that nothing but the clearest demonstration that there was a prevalence throughout the kingdom of crime of the particular class said to be aimed at would justify the House in passing such legislation. Flogging degrades the person who inflicts the punishment, degrades and demoralises the victim of the punishment, it outrages all our sense of humanity, and it leaves hopeless any expectation that the victim would ever under any circumstances or under the most favourable auspices become a respectable and worthy member of society. I think that the statistics which have been quoted demonstrate that it would not operate as a deterrent of crime, and that it would be a blot and stain on the history of English jurisprudence. If any change is necessary, I have no doubt that the right hon. Gentleman who now presides at the Home Office would be the first to initiate it, and I hope he will now declare that as far as it has come to his knowledge there is no pressing or urgent necessity for a Bill of this sort, and that the House should not be asked at the instance of a private Member to pass such a stringent and degrading measure.

*CAPTAIN PHILLPOTTS (Devonshire, Torquay)

Hon. Members who oppose this Bill have referred at some length to the question of flogging in the Army, though the Bill we are now discussing has nothing whatever to do with that question, and I am quite certain that if it were proposed in this or any other Bill to revive flogging in the Army or the Navy as it existed thirty or forty year's ago, every single Member on this side of the House would vote against it. What is proposed is punishment by flogging in certain cases of brutal crimes—crimes which show that the perpetrators of them must be of the most brutal and degraded nature. Have hon. Gentlemen no pity for the unfortunate women and children who are sometimes subjected to most frightful outrages, which not only inflict pain, but in many cases shatter for ever their nervous system? Have hon. Gentlemen who oppose the Bill no pity for these victims? Do they expend all their sympathy on the brutal scoundrels who commit these outrages? I think they ought to consider the victims as well as the perpetrators. This Bill only extends the law in a modified degree to those who are proved guilty of the most horrible crimes. In fact, in other cases it is proposed to substitute a milder form of punishment than exists under the present law. By Section 2 it is proposed to extend the age at which boys may be flogged for certain serious offences. I am quite sure that many magistrates and judges often feel the keenest regret in being compelled to sentence boys under sixteen to terms of imprisonment, whereas if they had the power to inflict sharp pain, which leaves no permanent disgrace and inflicts no physical injury, the boys might be permanently benefited, instead of having to go out into the world after a term of imprisonment branded with the stigma of a gaol bird. Many hon. Gentlemen have suffered corporal punishment themselves. One of the hon. Members who put down an Amendment for the rejection of the Bill was brought up in the well-known school that bears as its proud motto, "Manners maketh man." Was he never subjected to corporal punishment during his time at that school? If not, he must have been singularly fortunate. I believe that birching for boys is a most efficacious and in the truest sense of the word a merciful punishment. The right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite complained that the Bill applied to Ireland. I listened attentively to the speech of my right hon. friend who introduced this Bill, and I find the principal item relating to Ireland is the abolition of flogging for offences in connection with the mutilation of animals, and also for offences in which persons are prevented from following their lawful avocations, or, in other words, the crime of boycotting. I can only say that I would be sorry that flogging should be inflicted for that offence, and I think most of my hon. friends are of the same opinion. I have always been of opinion that the punishment for any offence should, as far as possible, be adapted to that offence. For instance, where an offence has been committed possibly in the heat of the moment and possibly under stress of severe temptation, the punishment meted out should be different from that given for a similar offence committed deliberately and with malice aforethought, and for brutal offences which not only inflict temporary suffering on those on whom they are committed, but may, and often do, affect the victims for the whole of their after lives I contend that the punishment should be such as would be likely to act as a deterrent. This Bill abolishes the punishment of flogging for offences to which that punishment is utterly unsuited, and permits flogging for brutal crimes, and I intend to give it my cordial support.

*MR. ASQUITH (Fifeshire, E.)

This is a Bill which, whatever may be its merits as a measure of consolidation and repeal, has for its primary purpose the extension of the punishment of flogging. It provides for that extension in two distinct ways—in the first place, by making flogging a possible part of the sentence in cases of crime in respect of which it has never hitherto been administered; and in the next place it entrusts the power of ordering it to a tribunal to which that power has to all intents and purposes hitherto been denied. That being the character and governing object of the measure, I do not hesitate—although I may be called sentimental by the hon. and gallant Member who has just sat down—to avow that, as far as I am concerned, I am unalterably opposed to it. I acknowledge the long experience and great ability in administering the criminal law of the right hon. Member who introduced the Bill; but when it is remembered that since the subject, I will not say was first mooted, but first became a matter of Parliamentary inquiry, nearly twenty years ago, there have been six Home Secretaries, belonging to different parties, and that not one of them has ever taken upon himself the responsibility of making a proposal of the kind to Parliament, the House must feel that this is a path upon which we should enter with a great deal of deliberation. Speaking for myself and my right hon. friend the Member for West Monmouth, who is unfortunately prevented from being present this afternoon, and who entirely shares my views, I can give the House a very good and sufficient reason why it never occurred to us for a moment to propose such legislation. It is only neces- sary to observe the judicial statistics as a whole; to trace the connection between severity of punishment and the diminution of crime; to observe that while some judges resort to flogging, a very considerable proportion, I believe the majority of the English Bench at present, comprising some of the ablest and most experienced of our judges, have never in their lives awarded the sentence of the lash—it is only necessary to take into account these considerations to perceive that no primâ facie case even has been made out for this extension of the law. The question can be looked at from three points of view—punishment pure and simple, reformation, and deterrent effect. Let us apply these three tests to this particular case. As to the first, I regard the suggestions made in this debate as a revival of the theory, at once fallacious and barbarous, that a man who commits a peculiarly brutal offence should receive a proportionately brutal punishment. I can imagine nothing more repugnant to the most elementary principles of justice and common sense than to say that because a man in a fit of passion has committed a savage offence, those whose duty it is to enforce respect for the law should begin that man's punishment with correspondingly savage treatment. As to reformation, has anyone ever yet been reformed by the punishment of the lash? I have never been able to discover any such evidence. The persons who commit the offences in the schedule of the Bill are for the most part brutal and degraded. But is the wisest course for weaning them from brutality and redeeming them from brutality to commence the course of punishment by treatment which involves moral humiliation and physical torture? You may depend on it with most of them there are latent, but still present, sparks of self-respect, and a sense of human dignity which, if carefully watched and tended, might in the course of time burn into a purifying glow, but which would be in great danger of extinction by such measures as the Bill proposes. As to the deterrent effect of flogging, it is impossible to look upon a punishment as really deterrent if the question whether it will be inflicted in any particular case is no more a certainty than a chance in a lottery. The majority of the judges never award this punishment at all, and if flogging is fixed to some crime to which it is not now attached we shall have the same uncertainty as we have at present. That in itself is sufficient to do away with the argument of deterrence. The crimes for which flogging might be awarded under the Bill are for the most part crimes which are committed under the influence of drink or passion or both. That is substantially true of at least three-fourths of the crimes of violence against women and children, whom we all agree should have every possible protection. If you admit that, and I think no one will deny it, you must admit also that the persons who are likely to be deterred by fear of punishment at the moment they are about to commit a crime, and when the temptation to commit it is irresistible, are not capable of forecasting and discriminating as to the kind of punishment which they were incurring. To say that persons under such influences calculate in their own minds crime to which they is liable to punishment by penal servitude or imprisonment or flogging, is to fly in the face of the ordinary facts of human nature. As to garroting, that crime had been brought to an end as a serious danger before the House of Commons in a fit of panic, due to one of its own Members having been garroted, resorted to legislation. Garroting was put down by Baron Bramwell largely without resort to flogging, by a fearless, but, I agree, a severe administration of the existing criminal law. If these considerations are well founded, I hope that Her Majesty's Government will resist this attempt to alter our criminal law in a sense which involves a retrogression to an obsolete theory of punishment, and which is calculated not only to create greater uncertainty but also to introduce additional confusion and inconvenience in the administration of justice.

*THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir M. WHITE RIDLEY,) Lancashire, Blackpool

I have paid great attention to this debate and to the speech of my right hon. friend who has done so much good work in his own county in the administration of the criminal law. It seems to me that this question may be viewed from two different points of view, leading to contrary conclusions. I am not unmindful of the fact that a predecessor of mine, speaking on this same Bill eleven years ago, took the view that it was a consolidation of the law, and that although he objected to many of its provisions, he thought it was desirable on the whole to give it a Second Reading, and the House did so. On that occasion my own name was on the back of the Bill, and at that time I shared the view of my right hon. friend the Member for Ripon. It certainly seems a strange thing that while flogging can be ordered for robbery with violence, it cannot be ordered for far graver offences against the persons of women and children. I am sure many hon. Members will feel that with reference to the protection which the law ought to give against assaults on the person. Therefore, I do not think it is necessary to defend myself for having felt that there ought to be a strengthening of the law in that direction. As far as the Bill is a repealing Bill, there will be very little difference of opinion about it. It proposes to repeal Acts of Parliament which are practically obsolete. Again, from the point of view that this is a measure to bring into one Act of Parliament all the offences punishable by whipping and flogging, there is an argument in its favour. But the main object of the Bill is to increase the power of flogging, especially for offences against the honour of women and children, coupled with personal violence. I am bound to say from the point of view which I take I cannot support the Bill of my right hon. friend. I am sure that every hon. Member in this House feels that this offence ought to be put down with a strong hand, and I do not say what I have said out of sympathy with the men who commit these offences; but I have seen something of the administration of the criminal law from another point of view since I entered the office which I now hold; and I do not hesitate to say that in my belief it is not a desirable change to make in the law. One word as to juvenile offenders. I believe very much in what fell from my hon. and gallant friend about the punishment of juvenile offenders by birching. In fact, I am responsible for a Bill containing provisions intended to prevent juvenile offenders being sent to prison at all, by widening the present powers of summary courts to administer the birch to them. In the Government Bill, which I hope will soon reach this House, the punishment of birching will be made available in all cases except homicide as a substitu- tion for the imprisonment of children and young persons; and I hope that when the Bill comes before us the House will give it an impartial consideration. I now come to the particular punishment of flogging adults for offences against women and children. The first argument against it is, of course, that which was so ably dealt with by the right hon. Gentleman who preceded me—what is the object of punishment, and whether this particular punishment is deterrent or reformative. Upon the question of the influence of this particular punishment I have made the best inquiry I could from those who are connected with our gaols, and I am bound to say I find opinions differ very considerably. There are those who are disposed to think that it had succeeded with a certain number of offenders, and others took the contrary view. It is impossible to deny that, in some cases, a flogging may have prevented a man from committing a brutal offence a second time; but at the same time the many inquiries made on the subject, and investigations into the figures, have proved that there are several cases of men who, having been flogged under the Act of 1863, had afterwards again committed the same offence. It therefore does not appear to me, from an impartial investigation of the figures, to be possible to generalise safely, or to form any definite conclusion on the subject. So again, with reference to the deterrent effect of the punishment on others, it will be admitted that if there is an epidemic of any particular crime, a kind of punishment may be justified which otherwise we might not be disposed to inflict. If there was a grave epidemic of serious offences, which apparently could only be dealt with in one way, Parliament and the country, no doubt, would be prepared, even though that way were repugnant to the ordinary civil and criminal practice of the country, to undertake the necessary means for extinguishing these offences. But there is no proof of the existence of such a state of affairs at the present moment. Allusion has been made to the Garroting Act. I agree with the version of the history of that Act, at all events as far as London is concerned, given by the right hon. Gentleman opposite, and that the rapid and severe action which put down garroting in London took place before the passing of the Act of 1863. But I am not sure that there is not evi- dence in regard to Liverpool that a great deal of good was effected in the streets by that measure. I am sure, however, that it was not the case in Manchester. I do not think it is proved that the passing of the Garroting Act has had a definitely deterrent effect. Now, that being the case, there is reason to doubt whether, when we are dealing with another offence of a complex character, it is desirable to apply this particular kind of punishment. I believe it is true that this kind of crime is not on the increase. I have figures with me which show that during the last seven or eight years, lamentable as is the number of cases of crimes of violence and rape in which persons have been convicted from 1893 up to the present time, it is not the fact that these crimes are largely on the increase, or that there is any special reason to believe that the present means of punishment are not adequate. That being the case, I doubt very considerably whether it is desirable to inflict this punishment, or to give the judges power to inflict it. Moreover there is, I think, an unanswerable objection to the Bill, which has been already dwelt upon by others who have spoken before me. I think that any punishment is most undesirable, both from the point of view of the criminal and from that of the Court, which is so absolutely uncertain in its operation as flogging is known to be. Quotations have already been made from the Return presented to the House, showing the number of sentences of this kind which have been inflicted during the last few years. No fair-minded man can look at that Return without seeing that a very large proportion of Her Majesty's judges are not willing to use this kind of punishment. I do not for a moment attempt to judge, whether they are right or wrong, but there are only about four of Her Majesty's judges, including the late Recorder of the City of London, who have to any considerable extent made a free use of this kind of punishment. I do not in the least degree blame them for doing so; and I know that in the Central Criminal Court it is only used in cases of extreme violence; but still, the fact remains, that a very large proportion of Her Majesty's judges will not use their power to inflict this kind of punishment. I say, therefore, that with so much uncertainty surrounding the subject, it cannot be said that this particular kind of punishment is really effective and deterrent. I should like to add that in this kind of case especially you have the greatest difficulty in getting at the truth. Many Gentlemen in the House know that in this kind of case it is more difficult to get at the truth than in any other. That being so, although not so strong an argument as that which I last used, it is very undesirable to inflict an irrevocable punishment. I have had cases before me since I have occupied my present position where the sentence of flogging was imposed, and in which it has been extremely difficult to decide whether the crime itself had been committed. In any of those cases where I had to come to the decision that the sentence ought never to have been inflicted, it would have been a very painful reflection to me if the flogging had been already inflicted. I desire also to mention here that I think that the present law, which enables a repetition of the flogging to be awarded, is a bad law. It is not for me to question in this place the discretion of Her Majesty's judges, but it has devolved upon me, in the discharge of my duty in the office I hold, to alter some of their sentences, and I hope I have not exceeded my duty in doing what I have done. I have been moved by the belief that even if you are to keep up the punishment of flogging for certain kinds of crime, it is not desirable, from the point of view of reformation, or from any point of view whatever, to inflict the sentence of flogging on a prisoner when he goes to prison, and then to hang over his head a second, or even a third, flogging. Recent legislation, to which allusion has been made, seeks to give an opportunity of reformation to prisoners, whether in penal servitude or when undergoing a sentence of imprisonment in local prisons. A great many good agencies in the country are seeking to help in that movement, and I think the Government cannot be accused of back wardness in their attempts to help it. At all events, rightly or wrongly, we are proceeding on the lines that no prisoner is to be regarded as absolutely irreclaimable, and therefore, speaking with all due deference to those who think otherwise, it appears to me that in cases of very serious crimes of this nature a long and heavy sentence, with some chance of reformation for the criminal while he is in prison, is a better thing than a short sentence of imprisonment if it is to be accompanied by a flogging repeated once or twice. You are more likely to send that man out to society reformed than if you gave him a sentence of three months imprisonment and a flogging just before he came out. I do not like to make any promises, but if there is any change in the law which is desirable, it is a change in the direction of abolishing the second flogging. Perhaps I need hardly say anything more, but certainly I do not think that this is a Bill which ought to be read a second time by the House. For my own part, seeing the enormous difficulties which would attend its administration, the great inequality in its operation, and the grave doubt as to whether flogging is deterrent or reformative, I shall vote against the Bill.

COLONEL LOCKWOOD (Essex, Epping)

I confess that I came down to the House to-day anxious to support the measure brought forward by my right hon. friend. The truth is that this Bill may honestly and fairly be taken in two ways. It has a certain sentimental aspect, and a legal aspect. I confess I came down to the House viewing it in its sentimental aspect. Many Members of this House, I believe, never read of a case of a brutal assault on women and children, but they are anxious to inflict punishment on these brutes with their own hands. We are all anxious, I believe, that these scoundrels should be made to feel something of the misery they have inflicted upon helpless women and children. But when we come to the legal aspect of the case I honestly confess that the speech of the right hon. Member for West Fifeshire carried with it a good deal of conviction. The right hon. Gentleman, I am bound to say, adduced several good and sufficient reasons why the punishment of flogging should not be inflicted, and with these I agree, but with others which he stated I cannot agree at the present moment. The question whether flogging is a deterrent or not is a difficult one; but the argument that when you have once flogged a man it is irrevocable, might be equally applied to capital punishment, and does not bring much conviction to my mind. With the opinion of the judges and six Home Secretaries against the deterrent effect of flogging, I confess that the weight of the argument is against my right hon. friend who introduced the Bill, and I hope he will withdraw it.

MR. DILLON

It has been to the credit and honour of the Irish party that for twenty years we have done everything in our power, and not unsuccessfully, to abolish flogging in every department of the public service. It was owing to the exertions of the Irish party that that disgrace to the British Army and Navy was done away with. I have not heard one single argument adduced to-day in favour of this Bill which we did not listen to in the House of Commons twenty-three years ago, when we raised the question of the abolition of flogging in the Army and Navy, and when officer after officer stood up and declared that it would be impossible to maintain discipline if the lash were taken out of their hands. Yet within two or three years after this abominable punishment was abolished, I do not think one single officer in the English Army would have had the audacity to propose its re-introduction. It is well known that when the lash was laid aside in Irish prisons, partly owing to a difference in the law, and partly to the voluntary action of the prison governors, the result was such that I venture to say no prison governor would accept it again if it were offered to him. Some hon. Members have gone so far as to covertly insinuate that those of us who oppose the lash do so out of sympathy for the barbarous and disgusting crimes which the Bill proposes to punish with the lash. That is a most unjust insinuation. There is in this House no difference of opinion, and I venture to say no difference in the degree of horror, with which these offences are regarded. The question of the lash is one altogether of principle, of experience, and also really of science. What has been the universal tendency of modern experience and modern civilisation? What has been the teaching of all men in all civilised countries who have applied their minds to this great subject of the reformation of criminals? It is that you do not gain good results, whether you look towards the reformation of the individual criminal, or towards the deterrents and prevention, by increasing the brutal or savage nature or the physical pain of your punishments. The whole teaching of modern experience in Europe has been that in direct proportion as the punish- ments are mitigated in their savagery and brutality, so in that proportion has the savagery of the crimes decreased. The hon. and gallant Member for Epping says that when we read of accounts in the newspapers of these disgusting crimes on women and children we feel an intense desire to inflict with our own hands punishment on the criminal. [Colonel LOCKWOOD: Hear, hear!] Yes, the hon. and gallant Member said he does; and that is human nature. I do not find fault with that. It is the desire of all of us; and if we were on the spot who would blame us? But has the hon. and gallant Member ever applied to his mind the result of giving way to that passion of the moment? Has he read the recent accounts of lynching parties in America? Has he read descriptions of negroes taken in the Southern States of America by mobs who are inflamed by this desire of revenge?

COLONEL LOCKWOOD

The hon. Member will excuse me; that was without trial.

MR. DILLON

I understood the hon. and gallant Member to say that if he could get hold of a criminal who had committed one of these disgusting offences he would not wait for a trial. The natural man no doubt desires to inflict speedy and immediate punishment upon the criminal on the spot. That is what the mobs in America do. See what the giving way to such natural inclinations leads men to do. A crime is committed in the Southern States of America of this disgusting character, and the population call a posse to catch the criminal, and, having caught him, in numerous instances roast him alive slowly before a fire, or stick all over him splinters of inflammable wood, set them on fire, and watch him being burned to death. That is very horrible; but few Members of this House would get up and say that that is not precisely the logical conclusion to which we are driven if we allow ourselves to be carried away by such sentiments and natural inclinations of passion. I have maintained, and always will maintain, that the use of the lash and every form of physical punishment is a disgrace to this country, and is a survival of old barbarism. One hon. Member said that these criminals are brutes, and that you can only prevent them committing these atrocious crimes by inflicting physical suffering. Yes, that was said in "the spacious times of great Elizabeth"; and when Lord Burleigh's cook attempted to poison him he put that cook in a pot of hot water and boiled him slowly to death. That was considered the right thing to do in those days, when men were also put on the rack or tortured with the thumbscrew or the boot. Why not frankly and honestly propose the use of the rack, the thumbscrew, and the boot now? What is the difference between the rack, the thumbscrew and the boot, and the lash? [AN HON MEMBER: There is a great difference.] Not at all; you have not considered the operation of the rack. I maintain that the rack is a much more decent punishment, and much less disgusting than the lash. You need not stretch a man on the rack beyond a certain extent. Even in those old days a large number of people who had been stretched on the rack were able afterwards to get about and attend to their business. [HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!] I am telling the simple truth. Of course, when hon. Members laugh it shows what they know of these matters. If you over-rack a man you can permanently injure him, but you can kill a man with the lash. Indeed, in this Bill you propose to have a surgeon standing behind who is to see that the man is not killed or permanently injured. I say there is no real distinction in principle between the rack, thumbscrew and boot, and the lash, They are all based on the same principle, namely, that in dealing with crime you are dealing with irreclaimable brutes, and that the only way to cure criminals and prevent crime is to inflict physical pain. I hold that to propose at this time of day such a retrograde measure is a survival in the minds of hon. Members of antiquated prejudices, and a love of a system which I had hoped humanity and civilisation had completely swept away. I, for my part, and I speak the minds of all my colleagues in this respect, shall never be content until we see the punishment of the lash completely wiped out of the Statute Book of the country. We hold this view not because we condemn these abominable crimes less than you do. I thank God that these crimes are very much less frequent in my country than in yours. We believe the true way to lessen these crimes is not by increasing the savagery and brutality of the punishment, not by imitating the brutality of the criminals whom you wish to punish or reform, but to turn your minds in a totally different direction; to dry up the well-springs of crime, and to reform the criminals. In that way you will produce a better feeling among the poorer classes of the country, who are subject to great temptations. Consider the evil surroundings in which they are brought up, and make some allowance for the cruel circumstances of their lives, and direct all your efforts to eradicating crime, not by brutal punishments, which no nation has ever succeeded in doing, but by intelligent and scientific treatment of the criminals—a task in which this country has been hitherto lamentably deficient.

*COLONEL SANDYS (Lancashire, Bootle)

I wish to say a few words on this subject. I confess that the Home Secretary's speech did not carry conviction to my mind. When I saw on the Notice Paper that a debate was to take place on a Bill to inflict corporal punishment on ruffians who commit these crimes, I said, "At last the House of Commons is going to discuss a measure of what I call social reform; and I hope they will arrive at a decision to support the Bill by a very large majority." Whether that will be the result or not, it is impossible for me to say; but I intend to go into the lobby in support of the Bill, for I consider that it will be fraught with very beneficial results. An ounce of fact is better than a pound of theory. An hon. Member said that no officer in this House would have the audacity to advocate the introduction of flogging in the Army. Well, I entered the Army in the days when the traditions of the Duke of Wellington still obtained; and I have seen many a man have three dozen lashes well laid on, and I never knew a man the worse for the punishment, but often the better. [HON. MEMBERS: Oh, oh!] That applied very well in those old days of the British soldier, but in these days we have a better class of men in the Army, and flogging is seldom necessary. I do consider, however, that it was unwise to take away the power of having the penalty of flogging in reserve if the court on calm deliberation thought it necessary for serious offences against discipline? However, that is not the question before the House. The question now is whether the punishment of flogging ruffians will or will not be a deterrent in the present day. The Home Secretary says that the practice of garroting was put a stop to before the punishment of flogging was introduced. If the right hon. Gentleman had not said so I should have maintained the contrary; but he cut the ground from my feet. What I would say is that, in my opinion, if the House will place the power in the hands of the judges to administer flogging when they think it right to do so, that the doing so will have the effect of stopping crimes of violence to an extent the House little dreams of, and it is in that belief that I intend to support the measure as a healthy social reform.

MR. WILLIAM REDMOND (Clare, E.)

I confess I listened with extreme surprise to the speech of the hon. and gallant Member for Bootle, who stood up at this time of day and recommended the use of the lash in the Army. I hope that every soldier in the Army will hear of that speech, and that every military person and their friends connected with his constituency will pay due attention to the fact that he has declared himself in favour of a practice in the Army which was by almost common consent abolished, and which, I believe, would not receive the slightest support in this House from any Gentleman calling himself gallant, except the hon. Member. The Irish Members are proud that it was the late Mr. Parnell who took the largest part in the agitation for the abolition of the lash in the Army. For his action on that occasion he received the thanks of the Irish soldiers, and I have reason to know a kindly feeling still exists towards him in the rank and file of the Army. In regard to the question before the House, everybody thoroughly recognises the public spirit which permeates the right hon. Gentleman who introduced the Bill in formulating the idea of preventing if possible a recurrence of these abominable crimes, and in giving an opportunity to the House of discussing what can be done to discourage these outrages. But would the use of the lash be a deterrent? I do not believe it would be in the slightest degree. I believe what the late Home Secretary said was perfectly true, that three-fourths of these crimes are committed under the influence of passion and drink or both combined, and that these unfortunate men never considered whether their punishment would be the lash or imprisonment. I firmly believe that a long and rigorous term of imprisonment would have an infinitely more deterrent effect than the lash, which takes all the self-respect out of a human being, and makes him more of a savage than when he committed the crime. I must say that it does not say much for the progress of civilisation in this country, that there exists amongst us a certain class of society of such a savage spirit as to hold that you are obliged to seriously consider whether you are not to go back

AYES.
Acland-Hood, Capt. Sir A. F.	Hobhouse, Henry	Orr-Ewing, Charles Lindsay
Arnold, Alfred	Hornby, Sir William Henry	Parkes, Ebenezer
Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John	Houldsworth, Sir Wm. Henry	Phillpotts, Captain Arthur
Baird, John George Alexander	Jeffreys, Arthur Frederick	Pierpoint, Robert
Baldwin, Alfred	Kenyon-Slaney, Col. William	Pym, C. Guy
Banbury, Frederick George	Labouchere, Henry	Rankin, Sir James
Beach, Rt. Hn. Sir M. H. (Bristol	Lafone, Alfred	Renshaw, Charles Bine
Beach, Rt. Hn. W. W. B. (Hants.	Lawson, John Grant (Yorks.)	Richards, Henry Charles
Bhownaggree, Sir M. M.	Leigh-Bennett, Henry Currie	Richardson, Sir T. (Hartlep'l)
Cecil, Evelyn (Hertford, East)	Lonsdale, John Brownlee	Sandys, Lieut-Col. Thos. Myles
Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich)	Macdona, John Cumming	Savory, Sir Joseph
Charrington, Spencer	M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool)	Seton-Karr, Henry
Coddington, Sir William	M'Iver, Sir Lewis (Edinburgh W	Shaw, Chas. E. (Stafford)
Coghill, Douglas Harry	Maxwell, Rt. Hon. Sir H. E.	Shaw-Stewart, M. H. (Renfrw)
Cohen, Benjamin Louis	Meysey-Thompson, Sir H. M.	Stewart, Sir Mark J. M'Taggart
Cubitt, Hon. Henry	Milward, Colonel Victor	Stirling-Maxwell, Sir John M.
Denny, Colonel	Monk, Charles James	Talbot, Rt. Hn. J. G. (Oxf'd Uni.
Doughty, George	Montagu, Hon. J. Scott (Hants.	Tomlinson, Wm. Ed. Murray
Fardell, Sir T. George	Morrison, Walter	Webster, Sir Richard E.
Fergusson, Rt Hn Sir J (Manc'r)	Mount, William George	Welby, Lt-Col. A. C. E. (Taunt'n
Finch, George H.	Murray, Rt Hn. A. G. (Bute)	Wentworth, Bruce C. Vernon-
Finlay, Sir R. Bannatyne	Myers, William Henry	Wilson-Todd, W. H. (Yorks.)
Gilliat, John Saunders	Nicholson, William Graham	TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr. Wharton and Mr. Halsey.
Goldsworthy, Major-General	Nicol, Donald Ninian
Hanbury, Rt. Hon. Robert Wm.	O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens

NOES.
Abraham, Wm. (Cork, N. E.)	Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn	Daly, James
Abraham, William (Rhondda)	Bullard, Sir Harry	Davies, M. Vaughan-(Cardigan
Allan, William (Gateshead)	Burns, John	Dewar, Arthur
Allison, Robert Andrew	Butcher, John George	Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles
Anstruther, H. T.	Buxton, Sydney Charles	Dillon, John
Arrol, Sir William	Caldwell, James	Donelan, Captain A.
Asher, Alexander	Cameron, Sir Charles (Glasgow	Doogan, P. C.
Ashton, Thomas Gair	Carew, James Laurence	Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-
Austin, Sir John (Yorkshire)	Causton, Richard Knight	Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark)
Austin, M. (Limerick, W.)	Cavendish, R. F. (N. Lanes.)	Emmott, Alfred
Bailey, James (Walworth)	Cavendish, V. C. W. (Derbysh.)	Evans, Sir F. H. (Southampton)
Baillie, James E. B. (Inverness	Cawley, Frederick	Ferguson, R. C. Munro (Leith
Bainbridge, Emerson	Chamberlain, J Austen (Worc'r	Firbank, Joseph Thomas
Baker, Sir John	Channing, Francis Allston	Fisher, William Hayes
Balfour Rt. Hon. A. J. (Manch'r	Clancy, John Joseph	Fitzmaurice, Lord Edmund
Barlow, John Emmott	Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse	Flannery, Sir Fortescue
Barnes, Frederic Gorell	Colville, John	Flavin, Michael Joseph
Barry, E. (Cork, S.)	Condon, Thomas Joseph	Fletcher, Sir Henry
Bemrose, Sir Henry Howe	Courtney, Rt. Hon. Leonard H.	Flower, Ernest
Birrell, Augustine	Cox, Irwin Edward Bainbridge	Flynn, James Christopher
Blundell, Colonel Henry	Crean, Eugene	Foster, Sir W. (Derby Co.)
Boulnois, Edmund	Crombie, John William	Fry, Lewis
Bowles, Capt. H. F. (Middlesex	Cross, Herb. Shepherd (Bolton)	Galloway, Wm. Johnson
Bowles, T. Gibson (King's Lynn	Curran, Thomas B. (Donegal)	Garfit, William
Brassey, Albert	Curran, Thomas (Sligo, S.)	Gibbons, J. Lloyd
Brigg, John	Dalrymple, Sir Charles	Gibney, James

to the old methods of torture used in the Dark Ages. As an Irish Member I refer with pride to the fact that abominable offences of this kind are conspicuous by their absence in Ireland. Of course a crime of this nature is occasionally committed in Ireland, but no case has been made out for the punishment of the lash as a protection of women and children in Ireland.

Question put.

The House divided.—Ayes, 7; Noes, 195. (Division List No. 89.)

Giles, Charles Tyrrell	Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine	Reid, Sir Robert Threshie
Goddard, Daniel Ford	Long, Rt Hn Walter (Liverpool)	Remnant, James F.
Godson, Sir Augustus Frederick	Lopes, Henry Yarde Buller	Rentoul, James Alexander
Gordon, Hon. John Edward	Lough, Thomas	Ridley, Rt. Hon. Sir M. W.
Goschen, George J. (Sussex)	Lucas-Shadwell, William	Robinson, Brooke
Goulding, Edward Alfred	Macaleese, Daniel	Samuel, Harry S. (Limehouse)
Green, Walford D (Wednesbury	Maclean, James Mackenzie	Samuel, J. (Stockton-on-Tees)
Gretton, John	MacNeill, John Gordon Swift	Schwann, Charles E.
Greville, Hon. Ronald	M'Ewan William	Seely, Charles Hilton
Gull, Sir Cameron	M'Ghee, Richard	Sharpe, William Edward T.
Gurdon, Sir Wm. Brampton	M'Killop, James	Sinclair, Capt. J. (Forfarshire)
Hanson, Sir Reginald	Mappin, Sir Frederick Thorpe	Smith, Abel H. (Christchurch)
Hare, Thomas Leigh	Mellor, Colonel (Lancashire)	Smith, James P. (Lanarks)
Harwood, George	Melville, Beresford Valentine	Spencer, Ernest
Hayden, John Patrick	Middlemore, J. Throgmorton	Stephens, Henry Charles
Hayne, Rt. Hon. Charles Seale-	Molloy, Bernard Charles	Stevenson, Francis S.
Healy, Maurice (Cork)	Montagu, Sir S. (Whitechapel)	Stone, Sir Benjamin
Heath, James	More, Robt. Jasper (Shropshire)	Sullivan, Donal (Westmeath)
Heaton, John Henniker	Morton, Arth. H. A. (Deptford)	Tennant, Harold John
Hedderwick, Thomas Charles H	O'Brien, James F. X. (Cork)	Thomas, Alf. (Glamorgan, E.)
Helder, Augustus	O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)	Thomas, David A. (Merthyr)
Hemphill, Rt, Hon. Charles H.	O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W	Trevelyan, Charles Philips
Hoare, Sir Samuel (Norwich)	O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)	Vincent, Sir Edgar (Exeter)
Hogan, James Francis	O'Kelly, James	Walton, Joseph (Barnsley)
Holland, William Henry	O'Malley, William	Warner, Thos. Courtenay T.
Horniman, Frederick John	Parnell, John Howard	Warr, Augustus Frederick
Hozier, Hon. James Henry Cecil	Pease, Herb. Pike (Darlingt'n	Wason, Eugene
Humphreys-Owen, Arthur C.	Pease, Joseph A. (Northumb.)	Wedderburn, Sir William
Johnstone, Heywood (Sussex)	Percy, Earl	Weir, James Galloway
Jones, David Brynmor (Swn'sea	Pickard, Benjamin	Williams, Joseph Powell-(Birm
Jones, Wm. (Carnarvonshire)	Pickersgill, Edward Hare	Wilson, Frederick W. (Norfolk)
Jordan, Jeremiah	Pilkington, Sir G. A. (Lancs S W)	Wilson, John (Durham, Mid)
Kay-Shuttleworth, Rt Hn Sir U	Pinkerton, John	Wilson, John (Govan)
Kilbride, Denis	Plunkett, Rt. Hn. H. Curzon	Woods, Samuel
Knowles, Lees	Pollock, Harry Frederick	Wrightson, Thomas
Lawson, Sir Wilfrid (Cum'land)	Power, Patrick Joseph	Wylie, Alexander
Lecky, Rt. Hn. William Edw. H.	Price, Robert John	Young, Samuel (Cavan, East)
Leng, Sir John	Purvis, Robert	TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Mr. Lloyd Morgan and Mr. H. D. Greene.
Llewelyn, Sir Dillwyn (Swansea	Redmond, John E. (Waterford
Lloyd-George, David	Redmond, William (Clare)

Words added.

Main Question, as amended, put and agreed to.

Second Reading put off for six months.