Sitting of 15 May 1809

STORE-KEEPER IN HYDE-PARK.
Mr. Whitbreadrose to call the attention of the house to a subject, trivial certainly in one point of view, though of some importance in another, and relative to which he proposed to offer a motion. It was a disgusting circumstance which ought not to exist; namely, the appointment of a person to the office of Ordnance Store-keeper in Hyde-Park, with a salary of 120 l. a year, a comfortable house to live in, with allowances of coals, candles, and other perquisites; and this a person who never had served the country an hour in army or navy, and also a foreigner. This situation ought to have been conferred on some meritorious old officer, worn out in the service; and many hundreds of such, he was sorry to say, there were pining out the evening of life in penury, any one of whom would be glad of such a situation.
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The person who held this appointment might have been for years perhaps the faithful servant of some honourable gentleman or noble lord, who, no doubt, recommended him to the patronage of the master-general of ordnance. It was certainly right that long and faithful services should attach the regard of a master to his servant, and it was desirable that meritorious persons in such stations should have comfortable provision for old age; but, then, persons in opulent circumstances should make that provision at their own expence, without trenching on that source which should exclusively belong to military men who had claims upon the generosity of their country, when worn out in her service. The honourable member concluded by moving for a copy of the appointment of Christian Frederick Walter to the said office of Ordnance Store-keeper in Hyde-Park, and an account of the salary, and all emoluments attached to the said office.
Mr. Wellesley Polesaid, he was the person who had five years ago recommended this Mr. Walter to the situation, in consequence of an application from lord Chatham, then master of the ordnance, to him, requesting him to look out for a trusty person to fill that office; and it was he also who had named the salary of 100 l. as a reasonable allowance for the service. Mr. Walter, he said, certainly was a Hanoverian, who had been 37 years in England, the greater part of which time he had been a faithful servant in the employment of Mr. Villiers, and maintained an unimpeachable character. Had he (Mr. Pole) conceived the employment, which required constant attendance, to be of such a nature that a military officer could look upon it as acceptable, he certainly should have recommended the place to be filled by such a gentleman; but having no such idea, he recommended the present store-keeper, and took upon himself the whole responsibility for whatever was blamable in the appointment.
Mr. Whitbread, in explanation, said, he had thrown no blame on any person whatsoever; all he had said was, that in his opinion the military were the proper persons on whom such appointments should be bestowed; and he was sure he could get a hundred officers who would be happy to accept it. He also thought the Master General of the Ordnance should have looked out for some such, upon whom to bestow it.
The motion was agreed to.

SALE OF OFFICES PREVENTION BILL.
On the order of the day for the further consideration of the report upon the Bill to prevent the Sale of Offices being read,
Mr. Ponsonbyobserved, that there was a difference between the manner of appointing the Masters in Chancery in Ireland and in this country; such appointments being made by the crown in the one, while they were made by the Lord Chancellor in the other. In consequence of this difference, it had become a practice for such masters as were about to retire to dispose of their places for money. A case of this nature occurred while he had the honour to hold the seals, and being applied to as usual, to sanction the sale, he hesitated, conceiving it rather extraordinary that a place for the administration of justice should be sold for money. However, upon being informed of the custom, and that the person seeking to dispose of the place had himself bought it, he gave his consent, on condition that the place should not again be sold by the purchaser. Yet as the circumstance of such purchases on the part of other masters created a case with regard to Ireland, to which the provisions of this Bill would not in equity apply, he suggested the propriety of introducing a clause upon that subject.
The Chancellor of the Exchequerexpressed his readiness to support a clause to meet the case referred to, and recommended the right hon. gent. to propose it.
Mr. Ponsonbyintimated his intention to do so.
The Chancellor of the Exchequerthen stated, that if it was the wish of any member to propose further amendments, he would propose a re-committal of the Bill.
Lord Folkestonesaid, the bill in its present state was perfectly nugatory. He had formerly had it in contemplation to introduce a clause into it, but on its being pointed out to him that the clause he thought of bringing forward would countenance the continuation in place of a person who had procured his appointment by corrupt means, in consideration of his having afterwards given information against others, he had not submitted it to the Committee. He was of opinion, that it would be proper to hold out some inducement to persons thus situated to inform against others concerned in such corrupt practices that some of the offenders might be punished (A cry of move, move! from the Opposition). The noble lord concluded, ex-
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pressing an inclination to make a motion to that effect.
The Chancellor of the Exchequerwished the bill to be made as effectual as possible. He had no objection to give the noble lord every opportunity to improve it by the introduction of a new clause, and he would therefore move that it should be recommitted.
The Bill was then ordered to be recommitted, and the house resolved itself into a Committee.
Lord Folkestonethen moved "That for every such offence the party should be liable to forfeit and pay the sum of 500 l. which sum should be given to the informer. The convicted offender being punished by fine and imprisonment, or by the one or the other, as the judges should direct."
The Chancellor of the Exchequersaid, as he understood the noble lord intended to bring forward another clause, he wished to hear that; that knowing the substance of both, he might be able more correctly to judge of the measure suggested.
Lord Folkestone, in reply, stated it to be somewhat on the same principle as the clause which he had formerly been induced to suppress; namely, the exonerating from punishment those who informed for having participated in the offence. Though he would have the party disabled from holding a situation obtained through such improper and unconstitutional influence.
The Chancellor of the Exchequerdid not think the Committee could go to the length of the noble lord's proposal. Were there no other ways of gaining information of such practices, it might be expedient to resort to the mode he had pointed out. But in the present state of things, he did not think it proper to hold out such a temptation to false evidence, or obtain true information by such means, and under such circumstances; possessing, as they did, other means of obtaining information, it was unnecessary. The temptation held out to false information, by adopting such a measure, he thought extremely dangerous, as the artifices of an infamous scoundrel might procure him 500 l. in some instances where the provision that the informer should lose his place, could do him no injury, which sum his benefactor, though far less culpable, might be compelled to pay.
Mr. Tierneythought the objection of the Chancellor of the Exchequer not a very strong one. If the benefactor of an in-

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famous scoundrel were liable thus to be punished, what argument was it against the clause? He ought to have had nothing to do in such an affair.
Lord Folkestoneobserved, the Chancellor of the Exchequer had said it was unnecessary to resort to such an expedient to obtain information, as sufficient information could be derived from other sources. This he denied; without the evidence of some one concerned, to obtain information was difficult, and perhaps in some instances impossible. He never thought the bill would do much good, but from the view he then had of it in its present state, he thought it might do harm. He thought with the right hon. gent., that it was but fair if the patron of an infamous scoundrel should suffer for endeavouring to advance such a character to a place of emolument or trust.
The Chancellor of the Exchequerdeclared his mind was open to conviction. The words of the right hon. gent, had had some effect on him, and if they could satisfy him that such a measure would be likely to benefit the country, he would give it his support. The noble lord had spoken as if information thus gained must be true; but that he thought extremely doubtful. He was of opinion, punishment would frequently fall where it was least deserved. Men might have exerted their influence with others to obtain a situation for scoundrels, who had got round them, and who might be wholly unknown to the person who gave them their situations. Yet against that person might they give information, though no party in the corruption. He might have given places to various persons on the recommendation of others, on whom he thought he could rely, since he had been in office, and a man thus appointed, might, were such a clause received, accuse him of corruption. Information might be given of the wrong, and, wrong or right, the informer would be rewarded.
Lord H. Pettyknew of no information that could be procured from accomplices, which would not be attended with such concomitant evils. He, however, thought the informer more likely to accuse the right than the wrong, for this plain reason; it was more easy to substantiate the fact in the former case than in the latter. He thought with the noble lord, that the bill in its present state was useless. That which it proposed to make a misdemeanor was before punishable by law, but no pro-
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ceedings had ever been instituted against any one. Why? Because no inducements were held out to call forth witnesses to substantiate the fact and furnish evidence.
The Attorney Generalopposed the clause, on the grounds that punishment might fall where it was least deserved. A and B might be trafficing for a place, which B might obtain for A, through the influence of C, who might be wholly ignorant of the traffic between them. B being dead, A might charge C with corruption, though only culpable in yielding to the solicitations of B, and bestowing an office on a person he thought deserving of such a situation. A might, in fact, be more likely to accuse C than B, however culpable B might have been; as A and B might be supposed to be friends, while between A and C no connection whatever might have existed.
After some further observations, the house came to a division upon the Amendment proposed by lord Folkestone,

Ayes

31

Noes

74

Majority against the Amendment

—43

IRISH DISTILLERIES REGULATION BILL.
Mr. Foster moved the second reading of the Irish Distillery Bill.
Mr. Bernardrose to oppose this motion. He said, that this bill went merely to amend the laws as they now existed, and to continue a principle of finance which had been proved to be ineffectual. It was under these laws, and the principle of them, of collecting the duties by what was called a system of survey, that is, by measuring the wash, low wines and spirits, that all the illicit distillation had flourished, and still continued to flourish. He said, he was borne out by the Commissioners of Inquiry in desiring that this system should be departed from, as they had recommended another system, called the licence system, under which a distiller had only to take out a licence, and pay for it according to the number of gallons of spirits which it was presumed he could make in a year, by which means the revenue was sure of being very considerable, and the distiller was left at liberty to work without the vexatious interference of the excise officers. He was of opinion, that unless small stills were allowed to work, the illicit distillation would never be put down. He referred to Mr. Croker's evidence to prove, that a small still would

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pay more duty comparatively with a large one; but so long as the right hon. gent. persevered in his system of giving bounties of 8l. and 10 l. per cent. on the duty paid by distillers using large stills, it was impossible that a small still could work in competition with them. He said this system of encouraging large stills was very injurious to the landlord and to the farmer; it took away the market from the interior of the country; for grain, which the farmer would have if persons were admitted to work small stills; and as to the illicit trade, it was obvious, that if a large district had no vent for its grain, and no cheap supply of spirits, there always would be illicit distillers. He then said, that the right hon. gent. meant by this bill to double the fines on townlands; this was a pretty way to meet the complaints of the people of Ireland against these fines. He read from a Report of the Commissioners of Inquiry a statement shewing, that in one county the amount of fines imposed in one year was 80,000 l. but that only 600 l. had been able to be collected, and that the expence which it cost the public to make the seizures for which these fines were to be levied was 50,000 l., so that the whole benefit of the system was, that of the excise officers, and no stop was put to illicit distillation. He, therefore, feeling that the bill did not go to attain the object which it professed to do, and which was desired by all the Irish members, namely, to admit small stills to work, would move, that it be read a second time this day three months.
Mr. J. Stewartsaid, that though he agreed for the most part with what had fallen from the last speaker, he thought it better to let the bill go to a Committee.
Sir George Hillwas surprized at the motion of his hon. friend for putting off the second reading of this bill. Having been privy to many conversations between the distillers and the Chancellor of the Exchequer for Ireland, he bore testimony to the attention with which every suggestion from them was received, and was sure that the fullest consideration would be given to any amendments which honourable gentlemen might be disposed to propose in the Committee.
Mr. Parnellsaid he rose to support the amendment of the hon. member who spoke last but one. He thought with him, that this bill ought to be opposed on its principle, which was to continue a system of collecting the duties on spirits, which
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had been proved to have failed by the Report of the Commissioners of Inquiry, and which, though amended session after session, was still ineffectual, because it was notorious to every one who knew any thing of Ireland, that illicit distillation was at this moment carried on there to a great extent. The Commissioners proved that in one year the loss of revenue was near two millions, and this loss can be attributed to no other cause than a great defect in the system pursued in attempting to collect it. They had not only, however, proved the extent of the evil, but they also proposed a remedy; this was to adopt the system of Scotland, and permitting distillers to work very small stills under a licence, the amount to be paid for which was calculated on the number of gallons which his still could work in a year. He said that this mode appeared to him to be the only one that could effectually put down the illicit distillation, because it was absurd to imagine that the exertions of the revenue officers could ever be adequate to counteract all the plans which illicit distillers have it in their power to adopt; the only way to proceed was to encourage persons to set up legal stills over the whole country, by suffering them to work with small capital, and without the vexatious oppression of the laws as they now stand in respect to regulations, and powers given to the revenue officers. For so soon as legal distillers were so established, they would be so interested in preventing illicit trade, that they alone, without the aid of the revenue officers, would soon clear the country of it. The policy of this method of proceeding had been fully established in Scotland. Before 1786, the system of collecting the duties on spirits was exactly the same as it now is in Ireland; the whole country was supplied by illicit distillation. In that year the licence system was adopted, and it is proved in the evidence given before a committee of the house, that in the first year 18,000 l. was collected, whereas 18 s. had never before been collected; that the legal distillers detected and punished the illegal distillers, and that the increased demand for grain soon contributed to the general improvement of the agriculture of Scotland, and changed altogether the face of the country. Under the circumstances of the Commissioners of Inquiry having recommended a specific remedy to be adopted, it appeared to him very extraordinary that the right hon. gent. should propose a

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measure to the house in direct contradiction to their recommendation, without shewing that it did not deserve to be attended to. For his part he thought that when parliament had appointed commissioners to enquire into the collection of the revenue of Ireland, to whom they had paid an immense sum of money as a reward for their trouble, it was the duty of the right hon. gent. either to adopt their advice, or shew why it ought not to be adopted; for it would be of no use to the public to pay these Commissioners so largely, if by no possible means the information and advice which they afforded the public was to be wholly neglected. The hon. member then said that he knew very well that the right hon. gent. was ready to say that his bill went to admit small stills of 50 gallons content to work. So it did; but what purpose would it avail to have such a power given in one clause, if in the next such regulations were laid down that would break any man who attempted to work a small still. It was absurd to hold out such a concession, for no man in his senses could for a moment conceive it possible for a small still to work, so long as the bounty of 16 per cent. was given to a person working a 1,500 gallon still; who, even without the bounty, would, in consequence of his large capital, and the large scale of his work, have great advantages over the person working a small still. He said that it was of vast importance to the Irish members, and the people of Ireland, that the decision of the house should be a correct one; because, if the system of the right hon. gent, was to be persevered in, the same deficiency of revenue was still to be calculated upon; and as this had been computed at two millions, it stood to reason that new taxes would be imposed to provide for this deficiency, whereas if a system was adopted, by which the whole duty on spirits made in Ireland could be collected, no necessity would exist for any new taxes, so far as a sum to this amount was in question. He also said, that the licence system proposed was attended with this peculiar advantage, that but few excise officers would be wanting to assist in collecting the duties; and this was a circumstance which rendered it peculiarly applicable to Ireland, because the only justification which the right hon. gent. could advance when a charge was lately made by a right hon. baronet near him against an officer, was, that every other
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officer of the excise had been equally culpable.—He said he thought that the hon. member who spoke immediately preceding him, had taken a wrong view of the subject, when he said that he conceived this bill might be considered in the committee so as to meet the wishes of the Irish members; in his opinion, if it even got into a committee, no such amendment could be made to it, because the alteration which was desired, went to a repeal of all the laws by which the duty on spirits was now charged, and the enactment of a new law, founded upon a new principle.—He hoped, therefore, that this opportunity would not be thrown away of getting rid of a bill, which could never provide an effectual remedy for the evil complained of.
Mr. Fostersaid, it was admitted that the laws on this subject wanted amendment: he knew that they did, and it was an object that the bill should go to a committee to find out the best mode. There was not one clause in the bill contrary to the opinion of the committee; there was a clause expressly for the encouragement of small stills, and if any gentleman wished to read the clause, he would read it to him [a laugh]. The right hon. gent. then read the clause, and argued that it was one of the leading principles of the bill to license small stills. His object for introducing it was, that it would afford a market throughout the country for small farmers to sell their corn. Whether the duties were raised by survey or licence, he was sure they could never be collected without the co-operation of gentlemen and farmers, but he would make great sacrifices to public opinion, to forward the object in view. He concluded with recommending to the house to go into a Committee on the bill on Thursday next.
Sir J. Newportsaid, he would allow the bill to go to a committee if it were likely to answer the object. The officers under the survey system had been guilty of great fraud, and he had complained of one who was subsequently promoted; the present bill went to the indemnification of all officers who had been guilty of collusive seizures, and he could not think the bill likely to go to a committee; it was incapable of emendation, and he wished it to be rejected altogether.
Col. Barrysaid he had heard no objection but what could be answered in the Committee, and would therefore vote for its committal.
Mr. Frenchwould wish the bill to go

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forward, if it were likely to have any good effect, but the principle of the bill was bad, it went to punish the innocent for the guilty. If a still were found in a parish, the landlords and the inhabitants were to pay the fine; it went to cover the acts of the officers, to afford those indemnity who, it was known, had received three fines upon one still: first they got a fine of 50 l. then returned it, and again received 50 l.; and thus till they obtained 150 l. A Bill which could encourage such practices, such an odious Bill—ought to be scouted out of the house.
Mr. Dennis Brownesaid, where private distilleries were put down, loyalty increased, and he knew it was in the power of the gentry to do so. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer gave up his penal clause, it would give life to illicit distillery and disloyalty.
Mr. Huskissonthought the bill should be allowed to go to a Committee, in which the fines and the drawback allowed to large distilleries might be so regulated as to prevent their being injurious to the smaller ones.
Mr. Fitzgeraldwas glad to hear the hon. gent. argue as he did, but thought, if he acted on his theory, he would vote against the Chancellor of the Exchequer. From the sentiment of that right hon. gent., others must have a higher opinion of his complacency than he had, to think he would give way in the committee to change the substance of the bill.
Col. Barrysaid, his object in wishing the bill to go to a committee was, that its severities might be softened.
Mr. Barnardwithdrew his amendment, and the bill was then read a second time.

MARTINIQUE TRADE BILL.
On the question that the Martinique Trade Bill should be read a second time;
Mr. Marriatsaid, he was surprised that the measure should be brought forward without any attempt to prove its expediency. It was not beneficial to the British West India islands, but it would be a serious injury to the sugar refiners of this country, by bringing the sugar of Martinique in competition with theirs in the foreign market. Another class to whom it would be injurious was the inhabitants of Martinique themselves, who had agreed not to obstruct the army, in consequence of a proclamation which declared that they should be restored to the same government they had before;
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such was the condition held out, and they were now about to legislate in violation of it.
Mr. Rosesaid, that he could not help thinking the gentlemen who belonged to the British plantations good judges of their own interests. With respect to the Sugar Refiners, he admitted they would incur some disadvantages from the bill. As to the promise held out in the proclamation, it could not mean that they should be restored to their former government and state, but signified a general expression of kindness which was not violated by the bill before the house. By it they were placed in a situation little inferior to the British planter; and by the 13th article of the capitulation, provision was made to keep that measure open to the adoption of the legislature. Where then, he asked, was the breach of faith? It had been said that a remonstrance was coming over; it might be the case, but he could not believe that it would be signed by the officers who commanded until he saw it.
Mr. Jacobcontended that they were to construe the capitulation, not according to the intention of the officers, but to the sense in which it was taken by the people who were the subjects of it.
Lord Castlereaghsaid, that the public faith of the country was not pledged to the proposition stated by the hon. gent. The officers could not use a language capable of such an interpretation. They had gone out unshackled, and there was no stipulation or understanding between them and the inhabitants of Martinique previous to the proclamation. Upon that ground, therefore, the question was to be argued; he lamented that the principle of that measure was not taken up at an earlier period, as much benefit would result from it. Upon the whole, the motion had his approbation.
Mr. A. Baringsaid, as a mere question of policy it was necessary to cultivate the militia of the island; for when we were last in possession of it, they repulsed several attacks made by the enemy from Guadaloupe, and as the bill did not go to give that encouragement, he would give his decided opposition to it, as he conceived Martinique was entitled to the same favour bestowed on other conquered islands.
Mr. Hibbertsaid a few words in opposition to the bill.
The gallery was cleared, but the house did not divide. The question was carried, and, the bill was read a second time.

CRUELTY TO ANIMALS BILL.
On the order of the day for the second reading of this Bill,
Lord Erskinerose and said:—My Lords; I am now to propose to the humane consideration of the house, a subject which has long occupied my attention, and which I own to your lordships is very near my heart. It would be a painful and disgusting detail, if I were to endeavour to bring before you the almost innumerable instances of cruelty to animals, which are daily occurring in this country, and which, unfortunately, only gather strength by any efforts of humanity in individuals to repress them, without the aid of the law.—These unmanly and disgust-
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ing outrages are most frequently perpetrated by the basest and most worthless; incapable, for the most part, of any reproof which can reach the mind, and who know no more of the law, than that it suffers them to indulge their savage dispositions with impunity.—Nothing is more notorious than that it is not only useless, but dangerous, to poor suffering animals, to reprove their oppressors, or to threaten them with punishment. The general answer, with the addition of bitter oaths and increased cruelty, is, What is that to you?—If the offender be a servant, he curses you, and asks if you are his master? and if he be the master himself, he tells you that the animal is his own. Every one of your lordships must have witnessed scenes like this. A noble duke, whom I do not see in his place, told me only two days ago, that he had lately received this very answer. The validity of this most infamous and stupid defence arises from that defect in the law which I seek to remedy. Animals are considered as property only: to destroy or to abuse them, from malice to the proprietor, or with an intention injurious to his interest in them, is criminal; but the animals themselves are without protection; the law regards them not substantively; they have no rights!
I will not stop to examine whether public cruelty to animals may not be, under many circumstances, an indictable offence: I think it is, and if it be, it is so much the better for the argument I am about to submit to your lordships. But if even this were clearly so, it would fall very short of the principle which I mean anxiously and earnestly to invite the house to adopt. I am to ask your lordships, in the name of that God who gave to man his dominion over the lower world, to acknowledge and recognize that dominion to be a moral trust. It is a proposition which no man living can deny, without denying the whole foundation of our duties, and every thing the bill proposes will be found to be absolutely corollary to its establishment; except, indeed, that from circumstances inevitable, the enacting part will fall short of that which the indisputable principle of the preamble would warrant.
Nothing, my lords, in my opinion, is more interesting than to contemplate the helpless condition of man with all his godlike faculties, when stripped of the aids which he receives from the numerous classes of inferior beings, whose qualities,

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and powers, and instincts, are admirably and wonderfully constructed for his use. If, in the examination of these qualities, powers, and instincts, we could discover nothing else but that admirable and wonderful construction for man's assistance; if we found no organs in the animals for their own gratification and happiness; no sensibility to pain or pleasure; no grateful sense of kindness, nor suffering from neglect or injury; no senses analogous, though inferior to our own: if we discovered, in short, nothing but mere animated matter, obviously and exclusively subservient to human purposes, it would be difficult to maintain that the dominion over them was a trust; in any other sense at least than to make the best use for ourselves of the property in them which Providence had given us. But, my lords, it calls for no deep or extended skill in natural history to know that the very reverse of this is the case, and that God is the benevolent and impartial author of all that he has created. For every animal which comes in contact with man, and whose powers, and qualities, and instincts, are obviously constructed for his use, nature has taken the same care to provide, and as carefully and bountifully as for man himself, organs and feelings for its own enjoyment and happiness. Almost every sense bestowed upon man is equally bestowed upon them; seeing, hearing, feeling, thinking; the sense of pain and pleasure; the passions of love and anger; sensibility to kindness, and pangs from unkindness and neglect, are inseparable characteristics of their natures as much as of our own. Add to this, my lords, that the justest and tenderest consideration of this benevolent system of nature is not only consistent with the fullest dominion of man over the lower world, but establishes and improves it. In this, as in every thing else, the whole moral system is inculcated by the pursuit of our own happiness. In this, as in all other things, our duties and our interests are inseparable. I defy any man to point out any one abuse of a brute which is property, by its owner, which is not directly against his own interest. Is it possible then, my lords, to contemplate this wonderful arrangement, and to doubt for a single moment that our dominion over animals is a trust? They are created indeed for our use, but not for our abuse. Their freedom and enjoyments, when they cease to be consistent with our just dominion and enjoyments, can be no
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part of their natures; but whilst they are consistent, I say their rights, subservient as they are, ought to be as sacred as our own. And although certainly, my lords, there can be no law for man in that respect, but such as he makes for himself, yet I cannot conceive any thing more sublime, or interesting, more grateful to heaven, or more beneficial to the world, than to see such a spontaneous restraint imposed by man upon himself.
This subject is most justly treated by one of the best poets in our language. Mr. Cowper, in the Task, says:
The sum is this. If man's convenience, health,
Or safety, interfere, his rights and claims
Are paramount, and must extinguish theirs.
Else they are all—the meanest things that are:
He then proceeds in a most affecting and sublime appeal to our humanity and justice. I have not a sufficient recollection of it, and I will not destroy the effect of it by misrepeating it.
The same subject is touched upon, in most eloquent prose, in the theological works of Mr. Jones, which were put into my hands the other day by my worthy and excellent friend at your table. [Here lord Erskine read an extract.] Mr. Young, of Trinity college Cambridge, has also published an excellent treatise on the subject; and many of the most worthy and respectable of the clergy have done honour to their sacred functions, by impressing upon their congregations the divine commands, as it regards this important duty.
Every other branch of our duties, when subject to frequent violation, has been recognized and inculcated by our laws; and the breaches of them repressed by punishments. And why not in this, where our duties are so important, so universally extended, and the breaches of them so frequent and so abominable?—But in what I am proposing to your lordships, disinterested virtue, as in all other cases, will have its own certain reward. The humanity you shall extend to the lower creation will come abundantly round in its consequences to the whole human race. The moral sense which this law will awaken and inculcate, cannot but have a most powerful effect upon our feelings and sympathies for one another. The violences and outrages committed by the lower orders of the people are offences more owing to want of thought and reflection, than to any malignant principle, and whatever, therefore, sets them a thinking upon the duties of humanity, more espe-

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cially where they have no rivalries nor resentments, and where there is a peculiar generosity in forbearance and compassion, has an evident tendency to soften their natures, and to moderate their passions in their dealings with one another.—The effect of laws which promulgate a sound moral principle is incalculable; I have traced it in a thousand instances, and it is impossible to describe its value.
My lords, it was in consequence of these simple views, and on those indisputable principles, that I have framed the preamble of the very short bill which I now present for a second reading to the house. I might, without preamble or preface, have proposed at once to enact, if not to declare, wilful and wanton cruelty to the animals comprehended in it to be a misdemeanor, looking as I now do to the Commons, to enforce the sanction of the law by pecuniary penalties. But then the grand efficacious principle would have been obscured; which, if fortunately adopted by your lordships, will enact this law as a spontaneous rule, in the mind of every man who reads it—which will make every human bosom a sanctuary against cruelty—which will extend the influence of a British statute beyond even the vast bounds of British jurisdiction, and consecrate, perhaps, in all nations, and in all ages, that just and eternal principle which binds the whole living world in one harmonious chain, under the dominion of enlightened man, the lord and governor of all.
I will now read to your lordships the preamble as I have framed it: "Whereas it has pleased Almighty God to subdue to the dominion, use, and comfort of man, the strength and faculties of many useful animals, and to provide others for his food; and whereas the abuse of that dominion by cruel and oppressive treatment of such animals, is not only highly unjust and immoral, but most pernicious in its example, having an evident tendency to harden the heart against the natural feelings of humanity." This preamble may be objected to as too solemn and unusual in its language; but it must be recollected that the subject of the bill is most peculiar and unusual; and it being impossible to give practicable effect to the principle in its full extent, it became the more necessary, in creating a duty of imperfect obligation where legal restraints would be inefficacious or impossible, to employ language calculated to make the deepest impression upon the human mind, so as to produce,
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perhaps, more than the effect of law, where the ordinary sanctions of law were wanting.
It may be now asked, my lords, why, if the principle of the bill be justly unfolded by this preamble, the enacting part falls so very short of protecting the whole animal world, or at all events these parts of it which come within the reach of man, and which may be subject to abuse. To that I answer—It does protect them to a certain degree, by the very principle which I have been submitting to your consideration, and to protect them further, would be found to be attended with insurmountable difficulties, and the whole bill might be wrecked by an impracticable effort to extend it. But I shall be happy to follow others in the attempt. The bill, however, as it regards all animals, creates a duty of imperfect obligation, and your lordships are very well aware that there are very many and most manifest and important moral duties, the breaches of which human laws cannot practically deal with, and this I fear will be found to be the case in the subject now under consideration.
Animals living in a state of nature would soon over-run the earth, and eat up and consume all the sustenance of man, if not kept down by the ordinary pursuits and destruction of them, by the only means in which they can be kept down and destroyed; and it is remarkable that other animals have been formed by nature, with most manifest instincts to assist us in this necessary exercise of dominion; and indeed, without the act of man, these animals would themselves prey upon one another, and thus be visited by death, the inevitable lot of all created things, in more painful and frightful shapes. They have, besides, no knowledge of the future, and their end, when appropriated fitly for our food, is without prolonged suffering. This economy of providence, as it regards animals, which from age to age have lived in an unreclaimed state, devoted to the use of man and of each other, may serve to reconcile the mind to that mysterious state of things in the present fallen and imperfect condition of the world.—This state of wild animals is further strikingly illustrated by the view of such of them as have been spared from the humane huntsman, or the more numerous tribes of animals of prey. They are swept away by the elements in hard winters, retiring, as most of them do, to a solitary, protracted, and painful death.—Old age, my lords, even amongst men, is but a rare blessing;

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amongst such brutes, perhaps never. Old age can only be supported in comfort by that aid and tenderness from others, arising from the consciousness of those ties of nature, which it has not pleased the divine providence to dispense to the lower world, but which, as the greatest of all blessings, it has communicated to man. When the brutes have fulfilled their duties to their young, for their protection, they know them no more, and die of old age, or cold, or hunger, in view of one another, without sympathy, or mutual assistance, or comfort.—It is the same to a certain extent with regard to those reclaimed animals devoted to man's use for food, whose faculties, as far as our observation is capable of a just comparison, approach nearer to human reason. The old age even of such animals, for the reasons adverted to, would seldom be satisfactory. When they pass, therefore, from life to death, in a manner which gives them no foretaste of their doom, and consequently no sense of pain or sorrow in the road to it, the ways of God are justified to man.
The Bill, therefore, as it regards wild animals, could not easily have been framed for practicable operation, except by sanctioning, as it does, the principle of the preamble, which will, I trust, insensibly extend its influence to the protection of every thing that has life; by bringing habitually into the view of the mind the duties of imperfect obligation which it inculcates; and with regard to animals bred by man, or reclaimed for food, it will directly protect them against the cruelties which are generally committed on them, viz. the unmercifully driving them and beating them on their passage to fairs and markets, and against unnecessary sufferings in the hour of death.
Before I leave this part of the subject, I think it right to advert to the practice of Bull-Baiting. I did not intend to have touched on it, but as I find that some who support the principle of this bill, feel a difficulty as it regards this practice, it becomes necessary to consider how it will be affected by its operation. A bill was brought into the house of commons, whilst I had the honour of a seat there, to repress this practice, but not upon the true principle. The framers of it were, I am persuaded, actuated by motives of humanity; but they mixed with it very laudable objects of human policy, which rather obscured the principle of protection to the animals. One great object of the bill,
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and it was laudable on that account, was, to put an end to sports which led away the servants and labourers of manufacture and husbandry from the service of their masters.—The attack upon bull-baiting coming in this questionable shape, was defended as politic by talents capable of defending any thing; but talents (I am ready to admit) possessed by a person of as humane and feeling a mind as ever distinguished any man—a man, besides, of a most beautiful genius, and whom I have always esteemed and honoured (Mr. Windham). The truth is, my lords, that the matter was never fairly presented to his heart, and his intellect had got a wrong bias upon the subject. I shall not, however, come in contact with my excellent friend in his different view of this subject. This Bill says not a word about bull-baiting. I only include a bull in my catalogue of protected animals. They, therefore, who support the practice, may still support it successfully, if they can convince a court and jury, and the other magistracies of their countrymen, that it does not fall within the description of wilful and wanton cruelty; and if that shall be the general feeling of courts and magistrates on the subject, the practice will cease to be supported.
As to the tendency of barbarous sports of any kind or description whatsoever, to nourish the national characteristic of manliness and courage, the only shadow of argument I ever heard upon such occasions, all I can say is this: that from the mercenary battles of the lowest of beasts (viz. human boxers), up to those of the highest and noblest that are tormented by man for his degrading pastime, I enter this public protest against it. I never knew a man remarkable for heroic bravery, whose very aspect was not lighted up by gentleness and humanity; nor a kill him nor eat-him countenance that did not cover the heart of a bully or a poltroon.—As to other reclaimed animals which are not devoted to our use as food, but which are most wonderfully organized to assist man in the cultivation of the earth, and by their superior activity and strength to lessen his labour, in the whole circle of his concerns, different protections become necessary, and they are also provided for by the bill, and without the loss or abridgment of any one right of property in such animals. On the contrary, all its provisions protect them, as property, from the abuses of those to whose care and government their own-

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ers are obliged to commit them. They also reach the owners themselves, if, from an inordinate desire of gain, or other selfish consideration, they abuse the animals, their property in which is limited to the use.
It would be wasting your lordships' time if I were to enumerate the probable cases which this part of the bill will comprehend. It is well observed by an Italian philosopher, "that no man desires to hear what he has already seen." Your lordships cannot have walked the streets, or travelled on the roads, without being perfectly masters of this part of the subject. You cannot but have been almost daily witnesses to most disgusting cruelties practised upon beasts of carriage and burthen, by the violence and brutality of their drivers. To distinguish such brutality and criminal violence, from severe, but sometimes necessary discipline, may at first view appear difficult, and on that account a serious objection to the bill; but when I come to that part of the subject, I pledge myself to shew that it involves no difficulty whatsoever. But there are other abuses far more frequent and important, which will require a more particular consideration. For one act of cruelty in servants, there are an hundred in the owners of beasts of labour and burthen, sometimes committed by the owners alone, from a scandalous desire of gain, and sometimes in a most unworthy partnership with their superiors, who are equally guilty, with no gain at all, nor for any motive that it would not be disgraceful to acknowledge. I allude, my lords, to our unhappy post-horses. It is not my wish, my lords, to be a fanciful reformer of the world, nor to exact that the manners and customs of a highly civilized nation, should be brought to the standard of simplicity and virtue, if indeed such a standard ever existed upon earth. I do not seek to appoint inspectors to examine the books of inn-keepers, so as to punish any excess in the numbers of their stages, as you do an excess of outside passengers on the roofs of coaches. I know there are very many cases (which could not be brought strictly within the scope of necessities) where these poor animals must grievously suffer, yet where no law can properly reach to protect them. The demands, though not imminent, of human health, and even of convenience; the occasional exigencies of commerce; the exercise of franchises, and many other cases which must occur to every body, would furnish obvious exceptions without
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violation of the principle, and which every court and magistrate would know how to distinguish. But the bill, if properly executed, would expose inn-keepers to a reasonable punishment, who will palpably devote an innocent animal to extreme misery, if not to death itself, by a manifest and outrageous excess of labour, rather than disoblige a mere traveller, engaged in no extraordinary business, lest in future he should go to the inn opposite—when the law shall give a rule for both sides of the way, this most infamous competition will be at an end.
For my own part, my lords, I can say with the greatest sincerity to your lordships, that nothing has ever excited in my mind greater disgust, than to observe what we all of us are obliged to see every day in our lives—horses panting—what do I say! literally dying under the scourge, when on looking into the chaises, we see them carrying to and from London men and women, to whom or to others it can be of no possible signification whether they arrive one day sooner or later, and sometimes indeed whether they ever arrive at all. More than half the post-horses that die from abuse in harness, are killed by people, who, but for the mischief I am complaining of, would fall into the class described by Mr. Sterne, of simple or harmless travellers, galloping over our roads for neither good nor evil, but to fill up the dreary blank in unoccupied life. I can see no reason why all such travellers should not endeavour to overcome the ennui of their lives without killing poor animals, more innocent and more useful than themselves. To speak gravely, my lords, I maintain that human idleness ought not to be permitted, by the laws of enlightened man, to tax for nothing, beyond the powers which God has given them, the animals which his benevolence has created for our assistance.
But another abuse exists, not less frequent, and much more shocking, because committed under the deliberate calculation of intolerable avarice. I allude to the practice of buying up horses when past their strength, from old age or disease, upon the computation (I mean to speak literally) of how many days torture and oppression they are capable of living under, so as to return a profit with the addition of the flesh and skin, when brought to one of the numerous houses appropriated for the slaughter of horses. If this practice only extended to carrying on the fair work

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of horses to the very latest period of labour, instead of destroying them when old or disabled, I should approve instead of condemning it. But it is most notorious, that with the value of such animals all care of them is generally at an end, and you see them (I speak literally, and of a systematic abuse) sinking and dying under loads, which no man living would have set the same horse to, when in the meridian of his strength and youth.
This horrid abuse, my lords, which appears at first view to be incapable of aggravation, is nevertheless most shockingly aggravated when the period arrives at which one would think cruelty must necessarily cease, when exhausted nature is ready to bestow the deliverance of death. But even then, a new and most atrocious system of torture commences, of which, my lords, I could myself be a witness in your committee, as it was proved to my own perfect satisfaction, and that of my friend Mr. Jekyll, upon the information of a worthy magistrate, who called our attention to the abuse. But perhaps, my lords, I shall better describe it, as it will at the same time afford an additional proof of these hideous practices, and of their existence at this hour, by reading a letter which I received but two days ago, the facts of which I am ready to bring in proof before your lordships.—Here lord Erskine read an extract from a letter which stated, "A very general practice of buying up horses still alive, but not capable of being even further abused by any kind of labour. These horses, it appeared, were carried in great numbers to slaughterhouses, but not killed at once for their flesh and skins, but left without sustenance, and literally starved to death, that the market might be gradually fed. The poor animals, in the mean time, being reduced to eat their own dung, and frequently gnawing one another's manes in the agonies of hunger."
Can there be a doubt, my lords, that all such shocking practices should be considered and punished as misdemeanors? Here again it may be said that the bill, in this part of it, will invest magistrates with a novel and dangerous discretion. I am not yet arrived at that part of the case, though I am fast approaching it; when I do, I pledge myself without fear to maintain the contrary, to the satisfaction of every one of your lordships, more especially including the learned lords of the house. No less frequent and wicked an
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abuse is the manifest overloading of carriages and animals of burden, particularly asses, and as far as this poor animal is unjustly considered an emblem of stupidity, the owners who thus oppress him are the greatest asses of the two. The same may be said of keeping animals without adequate food to support their strength, or even their existence; this frequently happens to beasts impounded for trespasses; I have had complaints of this abuse from all parts of the country. The notice to the owner is seldom served, and thus the poor innocent animal is left to starve in the pound.—As far as an animal is considered merely as property, this may be all very well, and the owner must find him out at his peril, but when the animal is looked to, upon the principle of this bill, the impounder ought to feed him, and charge it to the ownex as part of the damages.
Only one other offence remains, which I think it necessary to advert to, which it is difficult sufficiently to expose and stigmatize, from the impudence with which it is every day committed, as if the perpetrators of this kind of wickedness were engaged in something extremely entertaining and innocent, if not meritorious; I allude to those extravagant betts for trying the strength and indurance of horses; not those animating races, properly so called, which the horse really enjoys, and which, though undoubtedly attended with, collateral evils, has tended greatly to improve the breed of that noble and useful animal. The contests which I consider as wilful and wanton cruelty, are of a different kind; I maintain that no man, without being guilty of that great crime, can put it upon the uncertain and mercenary die, whether in races against time; no; not properly so called, but rather journeys of great distances within limited periods, the exertions shall very far exceed the ordinary power which nature has bestowed on the unhappy creature, thus wickedly and inhumanly perverted from the benevolent purposes of their existence.
All the observations I have just been making to your lordships, undoubtedly apply to the maliciously tormenting any animal whatsoever, more especially animals which we have voluntarily reclaimed and domesticated; and yet I fairly own to your lordships, that as the Bill was originally drawn, and as it stood until a few days ago, it would not have reached many shameful and degrading practices. The truth is, that I was afraid to run too rapid-

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ly and directly against prejudices. But on conversing with very enlightened and learned men, I took courage in my own original intention, and introduced the concluding clause, which comprehended the wickedly and wantonly tormenting any reclaimed animal; the effect of which in practice I will explain hereafter, when I come to shew the practicability of executing the law without trespassing upon the just lights and privileges of mankind. If your lordships, however, shall ultimately differ from me in this part of the subject, you can strike out this clause in the committee. I have purposely kept it quite distinct and separate from the rest of the Bill, as I originally framed it, being resolved to carry an easy sail at first, for fear of oversetting my vessel in a new and dangerous navigation.
I now come, my lords, to the second part of the case, which will occupy but a small portion of your lordships' time, on which I am afraid I have trespassed but too long already. (Hear! hear!) Supposing, now, your lordships to be desirous of subscribing to the principles I have opened to you, and to feel the propriety of endeavouring to prevent, as far as possible, the inhuman cruelties practised upon animals, so general and so notorious, as to render a more particular statement of them as unnecessary as it would have been disgusting: the main question will then arise, viz. How the jurisdiction erected by this Bill, if it shall pass into a law, may be executed by courts and magistrates, without investing them with a new and arbitrary discretion.
My lords, I feel the great importance of this consideration, and I have no desire to shrink from it; on the contrary I invite your lordships to the closest investigation of it, and for that purpose, I will myself anticipate every possible objection of that description, and give your lordships, in a very few words, the most decisive answers to them.—How, it may be first asked, are magistrates to distinguish between the justifiable labours of the animal, which from man's necessities is often most fatiguing, and apparently excessive, and that real excess which the Bill seeks to punish as wilful and wanton cruelty? How are they to distinguish between the blows which are necessary, when beasts of labour are lazy or refractory, or even blows of sudden passion and temper, from deliberate, cold-blooded, ferocious cruelty, which we see practised every day we live, and which
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have a tendency, as the preamble recites, to harden the heart against all the impulses of humanity?—How, in the same manner, are they to distinguish between the fatigues and sufferings of beasts for slaughter, in their melancholy journeys to death in our markets, from unnecessary and therefore barbarous aggravations of them?
Here, my lords, I am at home; here I know my course so completely, that I can scarcely err. I am no speculator upon the effect of the law which I propose to you, as the wisest legislators must often be, who are not practically acquainted with the administration of justice. Having passed my life in our courts of law when filled with the greatest judges, and with the ablest advocates, who from time to time have since added to their number, I know with the utmost precision the effect of it in practice, and I pledge myself to your lordships, that the execution of the Bill, if it passes into law, will be found to be most simple and easy; raising up no new principles of law, and giving to courts no larger discretion, nor more difficult subjects for judgment than they are in the constant course of exercising.
First of all, my lords, the law I propose to your lordships is not likely to be attended with abuse in prosecution, a very great, but I am afraid an incurable, evil in the penal code. I stimulate no mercenary informers, which I admit often to be necessary to give effect to criminal justice, I place the lower world entirely under the genuine unbought sympathies of man.—No one is likely to prosecute by indictment, or to carry a person before a magistrate, without probable, or rather without obvious and flagrant cause, when he can derive no personal benefit from the prosecution, nor carry it on without trouble and expence. The law is, therefore, more open to the charge of inefficacy than of vexation.—It can indeed have no operation except when compassionate men (and I trust they will become more numerous from the moral sense which this Bill is calculated to awaken), shall set the law in motion against manifest and disgusting offenders, to deliver themselves from the pain and horror which the immediate view of wilful and wanton cruelty is capable of exciting, or is rather sure to excite in a generous nature.—What possible difficulty, then, can be imposed upon the magistrate, who has only to judge upon hearing, from his own human feelings, what such disinterested informers have judged of from having seen

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and felt. The task is surely most easy, and by no means novel. Indeed, the whole administration of law, in many analogous cases, consists in nothing else but in discriminations generally more difficult in cases of personal wrongs.
Cruelty to an apprentice, by beating, or over labour, is judged of daily upon the very principle which this Bill will bring into action in the case of an oppressed animal.—To distinguish the severest discipline to command obedience, and to enforce activity in such dependents from brutal ferocity and cruelty, never yet puzzled a judge or a jury, never at least in my very long experience; and when want of sustenance is the complaint, the most culpable over-frugality is never confounded with a wicked and malicious privation of food.—The same distinctions occur frequently, upon the plea of moderate chastisement, when any other servant complains of his master, or when it becomes necessary to measure the degree of violence, which is justifiable in repelling violence, or in the preservation of rights.
In the same manner the damage from a frivolous assault or of a battery, the effect of provocation or sudden temper, is daily distinguished in our courts, from a severe and cold-blooded outrage. A hasty word, which just conveys matter that is actionable, is in the same manner distinguished in a moment from malignant and dangerous slander. Mistakes in the extent of authority, which happen every day in the discharge of the complicated duties of the magistracy, are never confounded for a moment, even when they have trenched severely upon personal liberty, with an arbitrary and tyrannous imprisonment. Unguarded or slight trespasses upon property, real or personal, are in the same way the daily subjects of distinction from malicious deprivations of rights, or serious interruptions of their enjoyment.—Similar, or rather nicer distinctions, are occurring daily in our courts; when Libel or no Libel is the question. A line must be drawn between injurious calumny, and fair, though perhaps unpleasant animadversion; but plain good sense without legal subtlety is sure to settle it with justice; so every man may enjoy what is his own, but not to the injury of his neighbour. What is an injury, or what only a loss, without being injurious, is the question in all cases or nuisance, and they are satisfactorily settled by the common understandings and feelings of mankind.
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My lords, there would be no end of these analogies, if I were to pursue them; I might bring my whole professional life, for near thirty years, in review before your lordships.—I appeal to the learned lords of the house, whether these distinctions are not of daily occurrence; I appeal to my noble and learned friend on the woolsack, whether, when he sat as Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, he found any difficulty in these distinctions; I appeal to my noble and learned friend, who sits just by him, whose useful and valuable life is wholly occupied amidst these questions, whether they are doubtful and dangerous in the decision, and whether they are not precisely in point with the difficulties which I have anticipated, or with any others which opponents to the Bill can possibly anticipate; I make a similar appeal to another noble and learned friend, who has filled the highest situation, I do not see him at this moment in his place, but to him also, I might make the same fearless application.—I cannot, therefore, conceive a case on which a magistrate would be exposed to any difficulty under this bill, if it should pass into a law.—The cruelties which I have already adverted to, are either committed by owners or by servants charged with the care and government of horses and other cattle. If the owner unmercifully directs them to be driven to most unreasonable distances, or with burthens manifestly beyond their powers; if he brings them up when past the age of strength, not for a use correspondent to their condition, but upon the barbarous and wicked computation of how long they can be tortured to profit; in neither of these cases can the cruelty be imputed to the servant whom you meet upon the road, struggling to perform the unjust commands of his employer. The master is the obvious culprit; "respondeat superior;" the spectators and the servant are the witnesses; and these are the cases where an indictment would operate as a most useful example, without oppression to those who thus offend systematically against every principle of humanity and justice.
On the other hand, when no cruel commands are given to the servant, but his own malice offends at once against his master and the unhappy animal which he wickedly abuses, he of course is alone responsible; and these are the cases in which a summary jurisdiction would be most generally resorted to, as more fa-

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vourable at once to the disinterested informer and to the offender, who would be thus punished with a small penalty, and be delivered from an expensive prosecution.—The other house of parliament will no doubt accomplish this in the further progress of the bill.
But in neither of these cases, which comprehend indeed every abuse which the bill extends to, is there any kind of danger that it will work oppression, or produce uncertainty in decision.—A man cannot, if an owner, be the subject of an indictment, because he may have been less considerate and merciful than he ought to be; nor if a servant, for an unreasonable blow of temper upon an unmanageable charge. No, my lords. Every indictment or information before a magistrate must charge the offence, to be committed maliciously, and with wanton cruelty, and the proof must correspond with the charge. This bill makes no act whatever a misdemeanor that does not plainly indicate to the court or magistrate a malicious and wicked intent; but this generality is so far from generating uncertainty, that I appeal to every member in our great profession, whether, on the contrary, it is not in favour of the accused, and analogous to our most merciful principles of criminal justice? So far from involving the magistrate in doubtful discriminations, he must be himself shocked and disgusted before he begins to exercise his authority over another. He must find malicious cruelty; and what that is can never be a matter of uncertainty or doubt, because nature has erected a standard in the human heart, by which it may be surely ascertained.—This consideration surely removes every difficulty from the last clause, which protects from wilful, malicious, and wanton cruelty, all reclaimed animals. Whatever may be the creatures which, by your own voluntary act, you choose to take from the wilds which nature has allotted to them, you must be supposed to exercise this admitted dominion, for use, or for pleasure, or from curiosity. If for use, enjoy that use in its plenitude; if the animal be fit for food, enjoy it decently for food; if for pleasure, enjoy that pleasure, by taxing all its faculties for your comfort; if for curiosity, indulge it to the full. The more we mix ourselves with all created matter, animate or inanimate, the more we shall be lifted up to the contemplation of God. But never let it be said, that the law should indulge us in the most atrocious of
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all propensities, which, when habitually indulged in, on beings beneath us, destroys every security of human life, by hardening the heart for the perpetration of all crimes.
The times in which we live, my lords, have read us an awful lesson upon the importance of preserving the moral sympathies. We have seen that the highest state of refinement and civilization will not secure them. I solemnly protest against any allusion to the causes of the revolutions which are yet shaking the world, or to the crimes or mistakes of any individuals in any nation; but it connects itself with my subject to remark, that even in struggles for human rights and privileges, sincere and laudable as they occasionally may have been, all human rights and privileges have been trampled upon, by barbarities far more shocking than those of the most barbarous nations, because they have not merely extinguished natural unconnected life, but have destroyed (I trust only for a season) the social happiness and independence of mankind, raising up tyrants to oppress them all in the end, by beginning with the oppression of each other. All this, my lords, has arisen from neglecting the cultivation of the moral sense, the best security of states, and the greatest consolation of the world.
My lords, I will trouble your lordships no longer than with admitting, for the sake of the argument, that there may be cases, especially in the beginning, where the execution of the bill may call for the exercise of high judicial consideration, through the dignity and learning of the supreme court of criminal jurisdiction. And here I cannot help saying, that it adds greatly to the security I feel upon this part of the subject, that when the bill shall have received the sanction of parliament, it will be delivered over to my noble and learned friend, who presides so ably in the court of King's Bench. From his high authority, the inferior magistracies will receive its just interpretation, and from his manly and expressive eloquence, will be added a most useful inculcation of its obligations; for I must once again impress upon your lordships' minds, the great, the incalculable effect of wise laws, when ably administered upon the feelings and morals of mankind. We may be said, my lords, to be in a manner new created by them. Under the auspices of religion, in whose steps they must ever

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tread, to maintain the character of wisdom, they make all the difference between the savages of the wilderness and the audience I am now addressing.—The cruelties which we daily deplore, in children and in youth, arise from defect in education, and that defect in education from the very defect in the law, which I ask your lordships to remedy. From the moral sense of the parent re-animated, or rather in this branch created by the law, the next generation will feel, in the first dawn of their ideas, the august relation they stand in to the lower world, and the trust which their station in the universe imposes on them, and it will not be left to a future Sterne to remind us, when we put aside even a harmless insect, that the world is large enough for both. This extension of benevolence to objects beneath us, become habitual by a sense of duty inculcated by law, will reflect back upon our sympathies to one another, so that I may venture to say firmly to your lordships, that the bill I propose to you, if it shall receive the sanction of parliament, will not only be an honour to the country, but an æra in the history of the world.
The Lord Chancellorapproved of the principle of the bill, but thought the application of it attended with some difficulty. That, however, was a matter of consideration for a Committee, and in that stage of the proceeding he would give the measure every possible attention.
The bill was then read a second time.