Sitting of 1 May 1866

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS — Ordered— Mines Assessment; Admiralty Court (Ireland); Church Temporalities Acts (Ireland).*
Committee —Grand Juries Presentment (Ireland) (re-comm.)* [89.]

CONFEDERATION OF THE NORTH AMERICAN PROVINCES.—QUESTION.
MR. ADDERLEYsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether he has received intelligence of proceedings in both Houses of Legislature of Nova Scotia favourable to the confederation of the North American Provinces?
MR. CARDWELL, in reply, said, he had received a letter from Her Majesty's Consul at New York, informing him that he had received from the Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia a communication to the effect that proceedings had taken place in both Houses of the Legislature of Nova Scotia favourable to the confederation of the North American Provinces. The majority in the Upper House was eight, and in the Lower House eleven.

CATTLE DISEASES PREVENTION ACT.

  QUESTION.
  MR. CHEETHAMsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, If the Government will suspend the operation of Part I. of the Cattle Diseases Prevention Act, relating to the slaughtering of animals, and compensation for the same after the 10th of May?
  SIR GEORGE GREYsaid, in reply, that these clauses, as originally enacted,
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  were to remain in force only till the 15th of April, but they were continued by Order in Council till the 10th of May. The Privy Council had not yet been called on to consider the question of their continuance beyond that period; but, from the communications which had reached him from different parts of the country, where great advantage had resulted from the operation of these clauses—in fact the diminution of the cattle plague was attributed very much to their operation—he thought an Order in Council would be passed to continue the operation of these clauses beyond the 10th of May.

TOTNES ELECTION.

  MOTION FOR A JOINT ADDRESS.
  MR. E. P. BOUVERIE, Chairman of the Reigate Election Committee, rose to move for a Commission to inquire into the existence of corrupt practices at the last election for Totnes. The Election Committee which had recently sat for the purposes of inquiring into the allegation of the petition presented against the returns for that borough, had found that there was reason to believe that corrupt practices had extensively prevailed in that borough at the last election. The Act under which they came to that finding was passed in 1852, and enabled Commissioners to be appointed on a joint Address of the two Houses of Parliament to the Crown. In case the Election Committee reported either that extensive corruption had prevailed, or that there was reason to believe that extensive corruption had prevailed, a Commission might, under the Act, be moved for to inquire into those practices. The House was aware that this Act had been put in operation by past Parliaments, and he believed four or five Commissions had been issued under it. He proposed very briefly to state to the House why it was that the Committee came to that finding in the case of the borough of Totnes; and he might begin by stating that in making this Motion he believed he expressed the unanimous opinion and desire of his colleagues as well as his own opinion. The case was rather a remarkable one. Totnes was a small borough, according to the Census of 1861 the population being only 4,000; since then, it had, according to calculation, been rather reduced, and was now between 3,000 and 4,000. The electors on the register were short of 400; the exact number was, he believed, 395.

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  Petitions were presented after the last general election against both the Gentlemen who were then returned, and the Committee appointed to inquire into the matter of that petition found that one of the Members had been guilty of a breach of the Act against corrupt practices, having made an offer of employment to one of the voters, with the view of influencing his vole; and they had therefore no alternative but to report him guilty of a breach of the Act and declare his election void. They also declared the other guilty of bribery and unseated him. The evidence which satisfied the Committee that they had reason to believe corrupt practices extensively prevailed at Totnes was not direct evidence brought before them to prove a general system of bribery; in fact, the cases of bribery brought by petition against the sitting Members were few originally, and substantially failed of proof. They were, strictly speaking, offers of bribery to voters who did not vote for the sitting Members, or the voters when produced swore they did not take bribes, though they had stated on other occasions they did. Therefore the evidence was not of a very complete or conclusive character. But a very curious and he believed almost unpredecented thing occurred in the Committee. A witness was produced for the purpose of contradicting one of the previous witnesses, and to prove that he had said he had had offers of money. That witness was named Screech; and on his cross-examination it appeared that he had been largely engaged by the opposite party in corrupting voters at Totnes. He appealed to the Chairman whether he was bound to answer the questions put to him. The Chairman told him he was bound to answer, because by a recent wholesome change of the law, a witness was not at liberty to screen himself from answering questions, the Committee having the power to give him a certificate which would exonerate him from any penalty. Screech had therefore to make a clean breast of it, and he told the Committee that he had been engaged on previous elections for the Liberal party, and at the last election for the Conservative party, to go about the borough offering to bribe, and bribing the electors. He admitted that he had applied to forty, and he believed that he had bribed twelve or fourteen. The reason he gave for not being more successful—and there was no reason to doubt his statement
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  —was that those to whom he applied told him they had done better on the other side. He (Mr. Bouverie) thought the Committee—certainly he himself—had a sort of impression from the tenour of the evidence that there was a general system of corruption, and they were informed that the market price of votes in Totnes, which was quoted quite like a share-list on the Stock Exchange, was higher at the last election than it had ever been before. Screech was asked whether on previous elections, when he was employed by the Liberal side, money had been going to any amount? Oh yes, he said, the amount was fearful; but it was never so largo as at the last election He was given to understand that the market price of a vote at Totnes during the last election was something like £200. He was bound to say from the way in which this evidence was given, Screech's evidence appeared to be generally truthful. The witness was produced on the petitioners' side; and the opposing counsel, while seeking to discredit his testimony, had of course no interest in proving the general prevalence of corruption; the main facts were consequently elicited by questions from the Committee, who, having got upon the scent, felt it their duty to follow it up; but, as the House must be aware, they had but feeble means of getting out the whole truth. They had also before them a man named Harris, who was the witness that proved that Mr. Pender, the late sitting Member, had offered him a situation if he would not take an active part against him; and on this evidence, in tact, the Committee unseated the sitting Member. He was what would be generally called a respectable man in appearance and occupation, and though an attempt was made in cross-examination to throw doubt on his veracity, the Committee believed him to be a credible witness. This witness Harris said he had known Totnes from his youth, and he expressed his belief that there were not fifty electors in the borough who were not influenced, directly or indirectly, by money considerations. Harris calculated that there were seventy-five electors of Conservative and fifty of Liberal politics who wore accessible to direct bribes. This was Harris' estimate of the political virtue and morality of Totnes; and the Committee unanimously arrived at the conclusion that there was strong reason to believe that bribery had extensively prevailed in the borough at the

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  last election. The House would remember that by an Act more recent than that under which these Commissioners were appointed, an Election Committee was prevented from giving the go-by to the question, but was bound to report whether or not there was reason to believe that corrupt practices extensively prevailed. The Totnes Committee, with the evidence before them, could come to no other finding; and having come to that finding the natural and necessary conclusion, as the law stood, was that a Commission should be sent down to inquire into the existence of this corruption, and endeavour to get at the whole facts. He knew it was said that the Commissions that had been issued in previous Parliaments, though they gave rise to exciting discussions in that House, had led to no legislation in regard to corrupt boroughs, and were practically useless for any purpose except that of putting a certain amount of money into the pockets of the learned Gentlemen who carried on the investigation. He (Mr. Bouverie) was not, however, quite of that opinion, and at any rate, while the law existed in its present shape, he thought the House was bound to act upon it and appoint a Commission. Moreover, the first step to the remedy of a great evil was to ascertain the extent of that evil, and there was no effective method of probing this sore of corruption except a Commission of Inquiry. Having, therefore, stated briefly the grounds on which the Committee felt compelled to come to the conclusion that there was reason to believe that bribery had extensively prevailed at the last election for Totnes, it seemed to him that the proper step to take was to appoint a Commission. The right hon. Gentleman concluded by moving—
  "That an humble address be presented to Her Majesty praying for the appointment of Henry Bullar, Montague Bere, and Charles E. Coleridge, Esqs., as Commissioners for the purpose of making inquiry into the existence of corrupt practices at Totnes."
  MR. MORRISONseconded the Motion.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, as followeth:—
  Most Gracious Sovereign,
  We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal Subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in Parliament assembled, beg leave humbly to represent to Your Majesty, that a Select Committee of the House of Commons, appointed to try a Petition complaining of an undue Election and Return for the Borough of Totnes, have reported to the House, that it has been distinctly stated by some
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  witnesses, and the general tenor of the Evidence given leads the Committee to believe, that a system of gross corruption prevailed at the last Election for the Borough of Totnes, and also on former similar occasions, and that there is reason to believe that corrupt practices have extensively prevailed in the said Borough:
  We therefore humbly pray your Majesty, that Your Majesty will be graciously pleased to cause inquiry to be made, pursuant to the Provisions of the Act of Parliament passed in the sixteenth year of the reign of Your Majesty, intituled, "An Act to provide for more effectual inquiry into the existence of Corrupt Practices at Elections for Members to serve in Parliament," by the appointment of Henry Bullar, esquire, Montague Bere, esquire, and Charles E. Coleridge, esquire, as Commissioners for the purpose of making inquiry into the existence of such corrupt practices.
  MR. BAXTERsaid, he did not rise for the purpose of opposing the Motion of his right hon. Friend, but he could not refrain from expressing a doubt whether such an inquiry would be attended with any practical result. In the course of the eleven years during which he had had the honour of a seat in that House he recollected at least three Commissions of a similar nature— namely, those of Gloucester, 'Wakefield, and Berwick-on-Tweed, in all which instances the Commissioners reported that corrupt practices extensively prevailed. Each of those inquiries cost £1,700 or £1,800, but none of them had been followed by any legislation. He would venture to submit that they had really quite sufficient evidence before them as to the existence of electoral corruption, not only in Totnes, but in Great Yarmouth, in Reigate, and various other places. It was not into the existence of the evil that they needed to inquire, but into the remedy. He was sure hon. Gentlemen would bear him out when he said that there was no part of our constitutional system of which we ought to be so thoroughly ashamed, and which intelligent foreigners, whether from the Continent or from the other side of the Atlantic, were so apt to put their finger upon, as the continued existence of these constituencies, which, as they all knew right well, could be bought and sold in the market. Apart altogether from the question of re-distribution of seats, it appeared to him that it was competent for Gentlemen on both sides of the House, without regard to their political opinions, to try and do something to put an end to a state of things so discreditable to the country. Her Majesty's Government, if he was not mistaken, had made some promise on the subject; but if they were not prepared to legislate upon it, he knew no

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  one in whose hands it would be safer or more likely to be carried to a satisfactory conclusion than the right hon. Gentleman who had just sat down. It appeared to him that whenever Committees of that House had over and over again reported that corrupt practices prevailed in certain boroughs, those boroughs should by virtue of such Reports cease to return Members to that House. He felt satisfied that some self-acting law like that would do a great deal more to put down bribery than all the Commissions that had been or might be issued. It was perfectly obvious, too, that the law with respect to prosecutions for bribery should be changed, for at present, except in very rare cases, a man might give or take a bribe with perfect impunity. The true remedy, he thought, would be to render it imperative upon Her Majesty's Attorney General to prosecute every such offender, and instead of incapacitating a candidate who had been guilty of bribery from sitting in one Parliament, he would disqualify him for life. He had made these observations because he had often heard the remark made that the House was not in earnest in dealing with this subject, and that it always threw its shield over corrupt practices. He thought, therefore, that it was necessary for the sake of their own reputation, as well as for the public good, that they should set themselves seriously to legislate in such a manner that not only the constituencies but that individuals guilty of corrupt practices should be punished.
  MR. DARBY GRIFFITHsaid, he believed the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Bouverie) would have the support of that side of the House in taking measures for the suppression of an evil which, as the right hon. Gentleman justly remarked, disgraced this country in the eyes of the world. Therefore, he did not rise to offer the least opposition to this Motion, which he should be glad to see carried further. There were now so many technicalities to be encountered before the Committee that it was almost impossible to obtain any satisfactory and rational verdict at all, and it was quite necessary that more stringent measures should be adopted. By the Act of 1852 it was required, before anything could be done, that proof should be given before the Committee that corrupt practices had extensively prevailed. They knew that before these Bribery Committees the real state of the case was very frequently con-
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  cealed—for instance, at Helston it was said that both candidates were tarred with the same brush; and when one was ejected the other could not claim the seat. The Committee was satisfied with a single case of bribery sufficient to void the election, and the remainder of the case was con-coaled, and an Australian millionaire was sent down by the Liberal party and matters would probably be made still worse. These things were done with the assent of the leaders of the House. He should like to know what they were going to do with Nottingham? The first thing that the candidate there did was to put £.3,000 into the hands of his solicitor, and to ask no questions; and it did not require much knowledge of the world to know in what manner that money would be spent. As many as 666 messengers were required in that borough; and yet in the face of these facts the small boroughs were continually being said to be particularly corrupt. Nottingham was not to be disfranchised, but a candidate who was connected with the Government in a remarkable manner was to be sent down to profit by the system. The fact was that the Committees of the House were not proper tribunals to take cognizance of these matters. For instance, the Chairman of the Committee was generally a layman, and barristers appeared before him and frequently raised difficult questions of law which he was incompetent to decide, and it was a matter of chance which way the decision went. ["Oh, oh !"] It was quite natural that hon. Gentlemen opposite who were such excessive purists should deprecate any discussion of this kind. The Chairman of a Committee must also necessarily be more or less a partizan of one side or the other; and a man of delicate feelings, believing that he was liable to be biassed on one side, would be unconsciously induced to bear hard upon the opposite side. They ought to get Gentlemen of great impartiality to occupy such a position, and they knew that at all events there were among the Members of the House thirty-three who were strictly impartial in their politics, and from among those the Chairman of Committees should be selected. Hon. Gentlemen opposite seemed to reserve all their wrath for particular instances of bribery, and let other cases pass by without observation. For his own part, he believed that it would be better to send out a Commission at once to investigate cases of this kind on the spot, without resorting to the expen-

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  sive machinery of a Committee. The expenses of bringing a petition frequently operated as a denial of justice, especially as witnesses often for the sake of their expenses up to London stated things on the spot as facts which they could prove in evidence which they denied when before a Committee.
  MR. KENDALLprotested against the charges of corruption which the hon. Member who had just sat down (Mr. Darby Griffith) had brought against a gentleman of high honour, who had utterly repudiated the charge that he had been guilty of corruption in any form. He was not justified in using such phrases as that both the candidates for Helston were "tarred with the same brush." It would be better if the hon. Gentleman were to speak less, and to be more careful when he did speak.
  MR. OWEN STANLEYtrusted that if the Commission were appointed it would meet forthwith, and would come to an early decision upon the question laid before it.
  COLONEL EDWARDSwas glad to find that the hon. Member for Devizes had met with one perfectly pure borough. He rose for the purpose of complaining that the borough he represented (Beverley) had been mentioned on several occasions as being included in the category of corrupt boroughs. Hon. Members would find by referring to a Report which had not long been issued that during the thirty-four years that had elapsed since the passing of the Reform Bill in 1832, only three petitions had been presented to that House against the borough of Beverley, and of those three two had failed, and in the third the then most Liberal Member of that House had been unseated. He thought it was a very hard case that a certain number of boroughs should be constantly paraded before the House as frightful examples of corruption, when, in fact, they were not more guilty than the others. In many instances petitions were presented against sitting Members for special purposes—he did not say that in all cases there was conspiracy; but it was well known that individuals might bring forward petitions for the purpose of extorting money from Members, and that at the last moment such petitions might be withdrawn. In the event of the law upon this subject being altered he trusted that the possibility he had referred to would not be lost sight of, and that measures
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  would be taken that would put a stop to such practices. It was exceedingly unpleasant to hon. Members to be kept in a state of suspense for five or six months as to the nature of the evidence to be given against them, and to be taunted during that period with representing a corrupt borough. In conclusion, he begged again to vindicate the character of the borough he represented from the charges that were habitually made against it.
  MR. BRADYobjected to the appointment of Commissions, as he believed, while they were most expensive, they were practically useless for the purpose for which they were intended. There was already sufficient evidence to prove that extensive bribery had prevailed at the recent election for Totnes. Why had not the Attorney General power to prosecute in cases of corruption as palpable as those proved to have occurred at that election? The hon. Gentleman the Member for Beverley (Colonel Edwards) stated that petitions were often withdrawn at the last moment. Now, in one instance which had come to his knowledge a candidate was perfectly prepared to show that the sitting Member had been guilty of corruption; but he had been compelled to withdraw his petition.
  COLONEL EDWARDSasked to whom the hon. Gentleman alluded.
  MR. BRADYdeclined to answer the question. The gentleman to whom he had referred had been compelled to withdraw his petition against the sitting Member, in obedience to the request of 100 of his own supporters. ["Name, name!"] He believed that the House would accept his statement on his vouching to its truth. He did not see that the issuing of the Commission in this instance could result in any good; but he trusted that the necessity for issuing so many Commissions after one general election would have the effect of attracting attention and showing the importance of action being taken in the matter.
  SIR GEORGE GREYthought that it was quite right that in the case of a borough in which an Election Committee had reported that corrupt practices had extensively prevailed, the House should exercise the power placed in its hands, and adopt the course now proposed in order to ascertain whether the opinion of the Committee was well founded; and to take ulterior measures if it should be found that corrupt practices had exten-

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  sively prevailed. He agreed that the proceeding involved delay, but he thought it would be too stringent a course to disfranchise a borough on the Report of an Election Committee.
  MR. BAXTERdesired to explain. His proposal was that a borough should be disfranchised on the Report of an Election Committee, where it had previously been I made the subject of similar Reports.
  SIR GEORGE GREY: But the Report of one Committee as to the last election adds no weight to the opinions of a previous Committee. The question was as to the best means of ascertaining the fact of bribery. But where a Committee reported that there was extensive bribery, and a Commission reported to the same effect, he thought they ought to be less slow in dealing with the delinquent borough. He believed that disfranchisement in such a ease would greatly tend to check corruption.
  MR. DARBY GRIFFITHexplained to the hon. Gentleman the Member for East Cornwall (Mr. Kendall) that the statement he had made with regard to the defeated candidate for the borough of Helston was made upon report only. He was, however perfectly willing to accept the disclaimer and would retract with pleasure any imputations which he had made.
  Motion agreed to.
  Ordered, That the said Address be communicated to the Lords, and their concurrence desired thereto.—(Mr. Bouverie.)

GREAT YARMOUTH ELECTION.

  MOTION FOR A JOINT ADDRESS.
  MR. MOWBRAY, Chairman of the Great Yarmouth Election Committee, rose to propose for that borough a similar Commission to that to which the House had agreed in the case of Totnes. The borough of Great Yarmouth differed in many respects from the borough of Totnes; but, although the former, instead of being a small, was a populous and rapidly increasing borough, the same atmosphere of corruption appeared to prevail in both. A Commission, however, for Great Yarmouth was emphatically necessary, because, as he should be able to show the House, corruption had prevailed in the borough ever since the passing of the Reform Bill. There had been repeated inquiries into the elections at, Great Yarmouth, and the House had even disfranchised a certain portion of the electors of
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  the borough—the freemen—but had failed to effect any improvement. The population of Great Yarmouth, according to the Census of 1861, was 34,810; and in 1866 it was computed at 36,959. In 1835 there were 643 £10 occupiers and 1,042 freemen; and in 1866 there were 1,640 £10 occupiers. By the recent Electoral Returns they learnt that of these voters 324 belonged to the working class, and the person by whom that estimate had been furnished had appended a note, which was not only curious in itself, but was peculiar to the return for Great Yarmouth. That note was as follows:—
  "With reference to the number of the working classes on the register it is stated that a great many persons who came within that description occupy houses at and above £10 rental, whose wives let their houses or apartments to visitors in the summer months, living in some portion of the house, or managing to keep a room or closet to themselves, so as to keep on the register and possess the franchise, which in Yarmouth is considered of some importance."
  Abundant evidence had been adduced before the Committee in the course of the inquiry to show that in Great Yarmouth the franchise was rightly enough regarded as a matter of importance, for four cases of bribery were proved against the sitting Members, and seven against the defeated candidates, all of the latter seven voters, however, having either received or been offered money to vote for the sitting Members. He did not purpose calling the attention of the House to the evidence taken before the Committee, because that evidence was already in the hands of Members, but he would refer for a moment or two to matters connected with former elections for this borough. The history of corruption in Great Yarmouth dated, indeed, as far back as the Reform Bill. In 1835 a Select Committee was appointed to examine into a petition presented complaining that the sum of two guineas per head had after the election of 1834 been paid to many of the voters. That Committee reported that up to the passing of the Reform Act it was the invariable practice, or nearly so, to pay two guineas to each voter who applied for it on each side of the question, without reference to the success of the candidates. The invariability and impartiality of the payment was alleged to have divested it of the character of bribery. That payment was discontinued in 183. Still that election—the first after the Reform Bill— cost the successful candidates between

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  £5,000 and £6,000. In 1834 the election cost the non-successful candidates £3,300, and the successful candidates £5,620. £1,200 was paid to the voters for the successful candidates, above £900 to 450 freemen, and £300 to £10 householders. Considerable drunkenness and excitement prevailed. 6,000 half-crown and 2,000 five-shilling tickets were printed for the successful party. The next petition was presented in 1848, when Lord Arthur Lennox and Mr. Coope were unseated for bribery by their agents. On that occasion thirteen persons were proved to have received £3 each, and the Committee reported that gross, systematic, and extensive bribery prevailed at the last and at the previous election for Great Yarmouth among the freemen of that borough. The Committee expressed to the House their unanimous opinion that the freemen should be disfranchised, and that no writ should be issued until legislative measures should have been taken for the purpose of such disfranchisement. In accordance with the recommendation of that Committee the freemen were disfranchised; but little was done by that means towards checking corruption. In 1857 Mr. M'Cullagh Torrens and Mr. Watkin were unseated for bribery by their agents, and on that occasion four persons were shown to have been bribed with sums of £3, £5, £6, and £10. In 1860 Sir Edmund Lacon and Sir Henry Stracey were declared duly elected. It was proved to the Committee appointed to examine concerning that election that four persons were bribed with £13 and £15 and that one Spilling endeavoured to bribe one Crane by offer of a sovereign. He could well understand that any attempt to bribe a voter of this borough with a sovereign must be futile, because the price of Yarmouth bloaters appeared to have increased of late years something after the increase which had taken place lately in the price of oysters in London. Before the passing of the Reform Bill the price was two guineas a head. In 1832, as soon as the Reform Bill had passed, they rose to the value of £3 each. In 1852 they reached the value of £10 each. In 1860 the price ranged from £13 to £16, and in the last year, at the election, their value was something between £15 and £30 a head. In the late election, moreover, a new feature had been developed, for there were two gentlemen who stated before the Committee that they did not regard it as in-
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  consistent with their political morality to receive bribes from both sides, and in fact, one of them had received £15 from each side, and the other £10 from one side and £15 from the other. It also appeared that a practice prevailed in the borough of getting 10 s. commission for obtaining these sums of £10 or £20 as bribes for voters; and the whole of the facts detailed before the Committee led to the conclusion that gross corruption had prevailed during the election. But the question might be raised as to whether a Commission would produce a more satisfactory result than a Committee; and to that he would reply that the Committee had been prevented from obtaining the evidence of several witnesses who could have supplied important information; and the Committee had, therefore, been unable to go fully into the case. A Commission, however, being on the spot, would be able to take much evidence which the Committee could not obtain, and he felt sure that the Commissioners would be able to lay before the House a much more complete picture of the state of things prevailing in the borough than it was possible the Committee could.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, as followeth:—
  Most Gracious Sovereign,
  We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal Subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in Parliament assembled, beg leave humbly to represent to Your Majesty, that a Select Committee of the House of Commons, appointed to try a Petition complaining of an undue Election and Return for the Borough of Great Yarmouth, have reported to the House, that they had reason to believe that corrupt practices have extensively prevailed at the last Election for the Borough of Great Yarmouth:
  We therefore humbly pray Your Majesty, that Your Majesty will be graciously pleased to cause inquiry to be made, pursuant to the Provisions of the Act of Parliament passed in the sixteenth year of the reign of Your Majesty, intituled, "An Act to provide for more effectual inquiry into the existence of Corrupt Practices at Elections for Members to serve in Parliament," by the appointment of Wyndham Slade, esquire, Augustus Keppel Stephenson, esquire, and George Russell, esquire, as Commissioners for the purpose of making inquiry into the existence of such corrupt practices.
  Motion agreed to.
  Ordered, That the said Address be communicated to the Lords, and their concurrence desired thereto.—(Mr. Mowbray.)

REIGATE ELECTION.

  MOTION FOR A JOINT ADDRESS.
  MR. HUSSEY VIVIAN, Chairman of the Reigate Election Committee, in rising to move for a Royal Commission to inquire into the existence of corrupt practices at the last Election for the borough of Reigate, presented a petition from the inhabitants of the borough urging the necessity for such an inquiry. The petition was signed by 140 inhabitants, including the high bailiff, the mayor, the vicar, every clergyman resident in the neighbourhood, and by the chairmen of both candidates. The fact that these last-mentioned signatures were attached to the petition, in company with the signatures of a large number of the most respectable people of the borough, showed that very corrupt practices must have prevailed there, and that the more respectable among the inhabitants felt strongly aggrieved at the fact. Among the fourteen cases of bribery brought before the Committee, seven were clearly proved. They found that very many promises had been given, and that many of the electors seemed to look upon their vote as so much marketable property—in fact, it seemed to be almost a part of the political creed of a great number of the electors that they ought not to vote unless they had received a promise of some pecuniary consideration, But although the Committee were generally impressed with the corrupt state of the borough, it was impossible for them to report fully upon that point, as it was the desire of the parties who came before them rather to make out specific charges against their political opponent than to blacken the borough. The consequence was, that their conclusions must be come to rather from inference than from absolute proved facts. It was proved before the Committee that a witness named Allen Edwards stated that one Joyce, a sub-agent of the then sitting Member, had offered him £5"to vote for Gower." He promised to do so; but because he did not receive the promised £5 he voted for Mr. Richardson, a gentleman who, it appeared, had no idea of standing for the borough, as he had either proposed or seconded Mr. Monson as a candidate. It was fair to presume that eleven other persons who voted for Mr. Richardson did so from similar motives. A man named Johnson stated that Joyce had said to him, with reference to a voter named Pitt, "I did think he was square, but he wanted buy-
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  ing the same as the others; he wanted a fiver I had promised him, and more if I could get it." From this and other evidence, the Committee came to the conclusion that "a fiver" was the price of a Reigate vote. That sum had, it appeared, been promised right and left, but in many cases nothing had been paid. The electors looked upon the bribe as so much a matter of course that one voter who was not paid had actually brought an action against the agent who promised him for the recovery of the £5 as a debt. When the case came on in the County Court, forty other voters cherishing a similar grievance were present in court, fully resolved to follow his example if he wore successful, but of course he was not. Other evidence was forthcoming touching the number of promises made. A person appeared in Reigate after the election calling himself Mr. Naylor. It: turned out subsequently that was not his name, but that he was a publican of Shore-ditch. He announced on his arrival in Reigate that he was the representative of Mr. Gower, and that he had come to settle with all those who had been promised money for their votes. A number of the "promised" voters fell into the trap, and although he diligently recorded their names, he gave them no satisfaction, and soon afterwards some one else called upon them and took down their statements in writing. Indications were given in the evidence produced before the Committee of corrupt practices having prevailed at previous elections. It was not competent for the Committee to inquire into these matters; but a Royal Commission would be able to do so, and that was one reason which led him to urge its appointment. He was not now giving the House the names of those witnesses who were reported as having been absolutely bribed. A voter named George Jupp, canvassed by Mr. Green, admitted that he had received £10 for voting for Mr. Gower. The evidence taken before the Committee was as follows:—
  "And there, outside the Committee-room, did you see Mr. Green?—Yes. Hid he say to you anything about voting?—Yes; he said to me, "Are you coming upon our side again? You seem backward in coming forward.'I said, 'I do not know.' He said, 'Did I not behave well to you before?' I said,'Yes' 'Well,' he said,' I will do the same to you again.' That was an answer. What did he give to you before?—I cannot exactly say what it was; it was about £10. He gave you about £10 before?—Yes. Was that for voting before?—And canvassing a little. I infer from what you say that you had voted for Mr.

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  Gower upon former occasions?—Yes. Had you canvassed for him upon a former occasion?—All that I did was to take one circular."
  There was also the case of the voter named Balchin, which was a peculiar one. This man admitted that he had received £5 in the first instance from the opponents of the sitting Members, and that he subsequently received £2 15s. from the agents of those Members, so that he obtained bribes from both sides. He said that he had been employed to look after voters; but it was very evident that he required a good deal of looking after himself—for the whole night previous to the election he was held in confinement, and kept in a state of drunkenness. During the night, whether he desired to go back to his former love or not, it was impossible to say; but when he made a search for his boots he was not able to find them. The next day he was taken in a cart to the polling-booth. He stated that he knew for whom he voted; but the Committee were unable to determine whether he was really aware for whom he was recording his vote. The cases he had mentioned clearly proved that corrupt practices extensively prevailed at the last election. On the whole, there could be no doubt that if ever there was a case clearly made out for the appointment of a Commission of Inquiry on account of bribery and corrupt practices it was that of the borough of Reigate.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, as followeth:—
  Most Gracious Sovereign,
  We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal Subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in Parliament assembled, beg leave humbly to represent to Your Majesty, that a Select Committee of the House of Commons, appointed to try a Petition complaining of an undue Election and Return for the Borough of Reigate, have reported to the House, that corrupt practices have extensively prevailed at the last Election for the said Borough:
  We therefore humbly pray your Majesty, that Your Majesty will be graciously pleased to cause inquiry to be made, pursuant to the Provisions of the Act of Parliament passed in the sixteenth year of the reign of Your Majesty, intituled, "An Act to provide for more effectual inquiry into the existence of Corrupt Practices at Elections for Members to serve in Parliament," by the appointment of Thomas Allen, esquire, Frederick James Smith, esquire, and T. D. Archibald, esquire, as Commissioners for the purpose of making inquiry into the existence of such corrupt practices.
  MR. BUXTONsaid, that the remarks of the hon. Member who had just sat
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  down forcibly showed how necessary it was that the course pointed out by the hon. Member for Dundee (Mr. Baxter) should be adopted—namely, that the agent guilty of the act of bribery should be rendered liable to be prosecuted for the offence. In the present case it was clearly shown that Mr. Gower was innocent of the bribery which had been proved, and from his knowledge of that gentleman he was convinced that he would do all in his power to check corrupt practices. Over zealous supporters would be restrained from resorting to illegal act3 if they knew that the Attorney General would, as a matter of course, prosecute every person who was proved to be guilty of, bribery. That was the only way of effectually checking such proceedings.
  MR. DUTTON, as a member of the Reigate Election Committee, said, that he did not think it was possible to conceive a worse case than that of Reigate. In the borough there was no political feeling whatever; it was entirely in the hands of the Liberals; and the consequence was that the electors, to a large extent, only looked out for the man who would pay them the most money for their votes. There was, in fact, hardly a man in the place who had not been bribed.
  MR. BRADYasked the House what they would do after these inquiries had taken place? What practical step was expected to result from the inquiries to be made by the Commission? Pour Commissions of Inquiry had already been moved for — he did not know how many more were to follow—but about £8,000 at least must be expended upon them. In his opinion not the slightest profitable result would follow those investigations. When the Corrupt Practices Bill was before the House he placed an Amendment upon the table to the effect that all Members, on being sworn, should deliver an account in writing of their expenses, and declare that those expenses were all that were incurred by them, or that they had paid, or intended to pay by themselves or their agents. That Amendment, however, was not accepted by the House; and that fact went a long way to prove that the House was not thoroughly honest in their intention to put down corruption. He hoped that the Government, for the protection of the public purse, would ask themselves, before they went further into these Commissions, what benefits would result from them.
  MR. GREGORYconcurred in the opinion that in order effectually to check bribery and corruption at elections, it would be necessary to instruct the Attorney General to prosecute all persons guilty of such illegal proceedings. He wished to point out to the House, however, that cases might arise, and frequently did arise in which bribery was practised, without either the candidate or his agents having had anything to do with it; and then constituencies got a bad name. He had risen to make these remarks because an impression seemed to him to prevail in the House that the course pursued by the Wakefield Committee was that of undue leniency. Now, only two cases of bribery were proved before the Committee, and they were not in the smallest degree attributable to the candidate, his committee, or his agents. In another case money was offered by a person who, in vulgar parlance, would be called a sporting man; he had entered into very largo bets on the result of the election petition, and he spent a great deal of money on his own account, in order that he might win them. In every other case where money was offered it was refused. He had taken the opportunity of vindicating the character of Wakefield, which he must say he thought had been very un- fairly aspersed. All the evidence that could be obtained was laid before the Committee, and it clearly proved that the last election for Wakefield was an extremely pure election.
  SIR MATTHEW RIDLEY, as a Member of the Wakefield Election Committee, corrobarated the statement of the hon, Member for Galway (Mr. Gregory). It was utterly impossible to connect the sitting Member or his committee with any of the cases of bribery and corruption which were proved to have occurred. It was not proved that bribery had been offered or committed by any agents of the sitting Member or by any of his committee.
  MR. E. P. BOUVERIEsaid, it appeared that these Commissions did some good, because at the last election for Wakefield, it had not been shown that there was any bribery committed by the sitting Member for that borough or his agents. He wished to set his hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr. Buxton) right as to the law upon the subject. His hon. Friend suggested that instructions ought to be given to the Attorney General to prosecute in all cases reported to the House. Now, that was the law at present, [The ATTORNEY
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  GENERAL: That is after a Commission.] He read it in the alternative.—either a Committee or Commission. They disfranchised Sudbury without the Report of a Commission, and St. Alban's after one. The general Act was passed for the appointment of Commissions where extensive bribery was supposed to have been practised, with the view of Parliament dealing with it afterwards. He hoped that when it could be proved that any of these boroughs had been guilty of bribery, that the House would be prepared to disfranchise them.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERALsaid, that if his right hon. Friend looked at the latter part of the clause, he would see that it contemplated the case of a Commission after the Report of a Select Committee; but he admitted the clause was not well worded, because the words were "such. Report with the evidence taken before the Committee, shall be laid before the Attorney General." He apprehended the Home Secretary would cause the evidence to be laid before the Attorney General, and he would be bound to prosecute unless he in his judgment thought that evidence to be insufficient. It by no means followed that there must be a Commission; for he had not the least doubt that, in any case where an Election Committee reported that bribery and treating had prevailed, it would be competent for that House, without a Commission, on their own Motion, to direct the Attorney General to prosecute, or to lay papers before him with a view of his prosecuting, and that on the Resolution of the House.
  MR. DARBY GRIFFITHsaid, he must protest, with all due deference to the Chairman of the Wakefield Election Committee, against the statement that no bribery had been committed, because it had not been proved that the bribery was by the agents of the sitting Member. How was the Committee to know that the bribery had not been committed by some person who had been secretly commissioned to do so.
  MR. ALDERMAN LUSKsaid, he had listened with great attention to all that had been stated with regard to these delinquent boroughs, and it appeared to him that the only and best remedy against bribery was the ballot. He believed they might as well try to keep sparrows out of a field by stone walls, as to prevent bribery by fencing it round without the ballot.
  Motion agreed to.
  Ordered, That the said Address be communicated to The Lords, and their concurrence desired thereto.—(Mr. Hussey Vivian.)

POOR LAW—MINES ASSESSMENT.

  LEAVE.
  MR. STEPHEN CAVE, in moving to introduce a Bill to amend the law in England and Wales with reference to the Assessment of Mines to the relief of the Poor, said, that as he understood the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade had no objection to its introduction, he should reserve any observations he had to make upon it until the second reading.
  MR. COLVILEsaid, he regretted that the hon. Gentleman should, at this time more especially, when the mining interest was in such a depressed state, bring in such a Bill. It should be remembered that three Bills, which had been brought in before with the same object, had failed, because the opinion of the House was that this description of property was of too speculative a nature to be rated. He should be happy to meet the hon. Gentleman on the whole question of rating, but he was at a loss to know why the mining interest alone any more than timber, young plantations, and even shipping, should be the object of the hon. Member's attack. He should feel it to be his duty, representing, as he did, the mining interest, to oppose the further progress of the Bill at every stage.
  Motion agreed to.
  Bill to amend the Law in England and Wales with reference to the Assessment of Mines to the Relief of the Poor, ordered to be brought in by Mr. STEPHEN CAVE, Mr. HENDERSON, Mr. PEROY WYNDHAM, and Mr. W. E. DUNCOMBE.

LANCASTER BOROUGH ELECTION.

  MOTION FOE A JOINT ADDRESS.
  MR. HOWES, Chairman of the Lancaster Election Committee, said, that after the discussion that had taken place that evening with reference to the other reputed boroughs, he thought it was unnecessary for him to take up the time of the House by entering in detail into the circumstances connected with the last election for the borough of Lancaster. The Committee had unanimously reported that they had reason to believe that bribery extensively prevailed at the last election for Lancaster. He might, however, further add that it was the unanimous opinion of the Committee that bribery was practised there in an open, and unblushing and systematic manner. And it was admitted
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  by the counsel for the petitioners that the unsuccessful candidate was unable to claim his seat because his agents could not come out of the proceedings with clean hands. It was admitted as fact that there was as much bribery practised on one side as on the other.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, as followeth:—
  Most Gracious Sovereign,
  We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal Subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, in Parliament assembled, beg leave humbly to represent to Your Majesty, that a Select Committee of the House of Commons, appointed to try a Petition complaining of an undue Election and Return for the Borough of Lancaster, have reported to the House, that they had reason to believe that corrupt practices extensively prevailed at the last Election for the Borough of Lancaster:
  We therefore humbly pray Your Majesty, that Your Majesty will be graciously pleased to cause inquiry to be made pursuant to the Provisions of the Act of Parliament passed in the sixteenth year of the reign of Your Majesty, intituled, "An Act to provide for more effectual inquiry into the existence of Corrupt Practices at Elections for Members to serve in Parliament," by the appointment of W. F. Fletcher Boughey, esquire, Thomas Irwin Barstow, esquire, and Robert M. Newton, esquire, as Commissioners for the purpose of making inquiry into the existence of such corrupt practices.
  Motion agreed to.
  Ordered, That the said Address be communicated to The Lords, and their concurrence desired thereto.—(Mr. Howes.)

ADMIRALTY COURT (IRELAND.)

  LEAVE.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAWSON), in moving for leave to introduce a Bill to extend the jurisdiction, alter and amend the procedure and practice, and regulate the establishment of the Court of Admiralty, Ireland, said, that as he understood there would be no opposition to the introduction of the Bill, he would merely content himself by saying that its object was to unite the business of the Irish Court of Admiralty with that of the Irish Court of Probate.
  MR. WHITESIDEremarked that there could not be a better Judge for the discharge of such responsible duties than the present Judge of the Irish Court of Probate. The only question was whether the learned Judge would like to have this jurisdiction transferred to him.
  SIR ROBERT PEELdesired to know what was to be done with the present Judge of the Admiralty Court—whether he was to discharge other duties, or whether he was to be superannuated.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAWSON)said, it was proposed to allow the present Judge of the Admiralty Court to retire upon his full salary.
  SIR COLMAN O'LOGHLENobjected to the two Courts of Admiralty and Probate being united. The jurisdiction of the Irish Court of Admiralty might be extended beneficially, and it should be placed upon the same footing as that of England. He wished to know whether the proctors of the Irish Court of Admiralty would receive compensation in the event of that Court being thrown open to the profession generally.
  MR. PIMsaid, that what was required in the Court of Admiralty was prompt decision. He thought that a remedy ought to be provided for the existing evils, of which complaint was so justly made.
  MR. MAGUIREthought that the Government had acted wisely in dealing with this question, but did not approve the course adopted in ignoring some of the most material recommendations of the Commission by whom this matter had been considered. He was in favour of reforming the practice and procedure and extending the jurisdiction of the Court, and continuing it as a separate and independent Court, as recommended by the unanimous Report of the Royal Commission. He did not recommend the superannuation of the present painstaking Judge but should there be an intention on the part of the Government to superannuate that Judge, he then said it would be a more politic course to carry out that intention, and appoint a new Judge to preside over a Court whose business would be certain to be very much increased by the assimilation of its practice with that of the English Court of Admiralty, than to hand it over to the eminent Judge of the Probate Court who had sufficient business of his own to occupy his time.
  THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. SULLIVAN)said, that the Judge of the Probate Court would be able to discharge the additional duty.
  MR. SERJEANT ARMSTRONGconcurred in the opinion that the recommendations of a Commission ought, as a rule, to be accepted. He did not purpose dis-
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  cussing the details of a Bill not before the House, but he trusted that the Government would be prepared at the right time to show that the Commissioners had made a great mistake, and that they were not entitled to the confidence of the House.
  Motion agreed to.
  Bill to extend the jurisdiction, alter and amend the procedure and practice, and regulate the establishment of the Court of Admiralty, Ireland, ordered to be brought in by Mr. ATTORNEY GENERAL for IRELAND and Mr. SOLICITOR GENERAL for Ireland.

  REPRESENTATION OF THE PEOPLE BILL (HARDEN PETITION).
  Order [24th April], That a Select Committee be appointed, "to inquire whether the signatures to the Petition presented to this I louse upon the 12th day of April 1866, professing to be a Petition of Inhabitants of Harden, near Bingley, in the County of York, in favour of the Representation of the People Bill, are the genuine signatures of the persons whose signatures they profess to be; and under what circumstances such signatures were annexed," read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the said Order be discharged."—(Mr. Ferrand.)
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
  Notice taken that 40 Members were not present,—Committee counted, and 40 Members not being present:
  Mr. Speaker resumed the Chair: — House counted, and 40 Members not being present:
  House adjourned at half after Seven o'clock.

MINUTES.
Took the Oath—The Lord Wens-leydale.
PUBLIC BILLS—First Reading —Contagious Diseases* (95).
Second Reading —Law of Capital Punishment Amendment (61); Customs Duties (Isle of Man)* (82); Local Government Supplemental* (84).
Committee — Qualification for Offices Abolition (41).
Report— Qualification for Offices Abolition (41); Salmon Fisheries (Scotland) * (86).
Third Reading—Sale of Land by Auction * (93), and passed.

LAW OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT AMENDMENT BILL.
(The Lord Chancellor.)

(NO. 61.) SECOND READING.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR, in moving that the Bill be now read the second time, said: My Lords, this measure relates to a subject of the deepest importance, and on which considerable discussion has taken place of late years in the other House of Parliament. In the year 1864 a Motion was made by a private Member of the other House (Mr. W. Ewart) for the appointment of a Select Committee to inquire into the subject of Capital Punishment. Considerable discussion took place upon that Motion, and my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary recommended that it should be withdrawn, undertaking that if it were not pressed he would recommend that a Royal Commission should be issued to inquire into the whole subject. A Royal Commission was accordingly issued to inquire into the laws now in force under which the punishment of death is inflicted and also into the manner in which capital sentences are carried into execution. The Commission met and took great pains to investigate the subject, not only by the examination of persons in this country who from their experience were likely to be able to throw light upon it, but likewise by procuring information from various parts of the world on a matter which, to a certain extent, is common to all nations. The Commissioners were twelve in number; and although they all concurred in the part of their Report recommending what in effect is embodied in this Bill, except as to executions not being carried into effect in public, yet four of them so far dissented from the opinions of their colleagues as to think that there ought to be no capital punishment at all, and that the time had come when it should be altogether abolished. I ought, also, to mention that another of the Commissioners, one of the Irish Judges, agreed with these four Commissioners to this extent, that he thought the time would come when the punishment of death should be done away with, but that society was not yet ripe for such a change. The other Commissioners, without expressing any opinion on the subject in direct terms, offer recommendations which are entirely inconsistent with the opinion that an end ought to be put to that

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mode of punishment. My Lords, it appears to me that in the consideration of the question of punishment of any kind, and particularly of capital punishment, we must hold that the onus of proof rests upon those who say it ought to he inflicted. But; I believe there can be no doubt that we are justified in maintaining capital punishment for the crime of murder if we come to the conclusion that it is the most deterrent punishment, and one for which no substitute of equal efficacy can be found, In considering that point we must endeavour to see in what way the apprehension of capital punishment operates upon the minds of the criminal class. Most of your Lordships must have been present at the trial of prisoners for a crime which the law visits with death, and you cannot have failed to observe how very solemn the proceedings in such cases are, how very much interest and excitement they occasion among those present, and how they operate on the minds of the accused, Again, at the time when many other crimes beside murder were punished capitally, it was a common practice to charge the prisoner under two counts of an indictment, one of which made the offence capital, and the other made it a less grave offence, and then to intimate to the prisoner that if he pleaded guilty to the minor charge, he would not be proceeded against capitally. The prisoner very frequently, under those circumstances, pleaded guilty, and was observed to be greatly relieved in his mind, knowing that he would not be sentenced to death. That showed how the one species of punishment operated more powerfully than the other. Moreover, when men have been convicted and sentenced to death, the great interest employed if possible to obtain a remission of the capita! penalty proves that death is a punishment so much more dreaded than all other punishments that it cannot do otherwise than exercise a more deterrent influence. But it may be asked why it is necessary that this punishment should be retained for murder and for no other crime? Now, I think it is of the utmost importance that the criminal class should always feel that they have a motive for stopping short of the destruction of human life; and they will have such a motive if they know that the severest punishment of death will follow the commission of a crime resulting in the taking away of human life, whereas a lighter punishment will follow the commission of an offence in which they do not go that
234
length. That seems to me to be almost a conclusive reason for the retention of the punishment of death for murder. We are dealing, it must be remembered, with a class of persons whom unfortunately there is little else to restrain from the commission of crime but the fear of punishment; and if that be so, they must feel instinctively that it is their interest to take away human life while engaged in committing lesser crimes, for the purpose of removing dangerous testimony, if they are not deterred by the fear of some special punishment for the graver offence. But for the fear of a severer punishment the criminal class would act on the terrible maxim that "dead men tell no tales," and thereby endeavour to get rid of those persons who might otherwise give evidence against them or lead to their detection and punishment. This is not mere matter of speculation. Among the documents collected by the Commissioners was an interesting Return from Florence, which shows that the abrogation of the punishment of death for robbery in Italy by open force, when unaccompanied by homicide, has much diminished the number of homicides which were committed before that abrogation. The reason for that is stated to be this—that he who committed the crime of robbery, knowing that the punishment of death awaited him, had every motive for putting to death the person whom he had attacked for the purpose of robbing him, in order to destroy the evidence of his guilt. The next question is whether it is possible to inflict any punishment short of death which would probably have the same deterrent effect? The only other punishment that could be substituted would be imprisonment or penal servitude, in some form or other, to endure for life. The question is whether the substitution of penal servitude for life would afford anything like the same security against the commission of murder as the consciousness that the punishment of death would follow. It is often urged in favour of the substitution of secondary for capital punishment that the former, being much more certain, would be more deterrent than the latter. It may be that a lighter punishment might be more efficacious than a heavier one if the prisoner found that he could escape the infliction of the heavier punishment, but could not escape the infliction of the lighter one. But the misfortune is that in all these great crimes the criminals, whatever punishment the law may award, have great hopes that

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they will escape, although they have to run a great risk; and I do not believe that any great criminal will reason that a jury would be more likely to convict in a case in which the punishment is penal servitude for life or for a less period, or that he would be in the least degree deterred from crime by the greater chance he stood of being convicted. We have, however, no means of knowing what is passing in the mind of the criminal—but it amounts to this, that the criminal knows that he will be punished more severely for murder than for the crime without the murder. Now, you may say that for a murder you may impose a penalty of penal servitude for life, while for any other crime you may sentence to penal servitude for twenty years. But does any one think that a criminal would calculate in his mind the difference between the punishment of penal servitude for life and penal servitude for twenty years? This is a matter which he never thinks about during the commission of the crime. I am therefore of opinion that the Commissioners are quite right in retaining and recommending the retention of capital punishment for the greater crime of deliberate murder, and I have no hesitation in recommending to your Lordships the Bill in which this principle is involved. My Lords, there is one great ground for adopting this course. It may be easy, on the suggestion of humane and thinking men, to abrogate the punishment of death. But if you find the consequence of that step is an increase in the crime of murder it is one of those cases in which revocare gradum would be almost impossible. Therefore, you ought not to abrogate capital punishment unless upon the safest and surest ground; and let me remind you that you ought to feel you are treading upon safe ground before you take action on a question on which you have no precedent to guide you. It is sometimes said that there are certain countries in which the punishment of death does not exist, and that is to a certain extent true; but when I look at all the countries around us, I find that it is not altogether true. It is said that capital punishment has been abolished in Tuscany. That is to a certain extent true; but I will now explain from the information gathered by the Commissioners to what extent it is true. In 1786 the then Grand Duke of Tuscany, afterwards the Emperor Leopold, did abolish capital punishment in Tuscany, and it remained abolished until the horrors of the first French Revolution began to spread over
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Europe. The punishment of death was then restored, not for simple murder, but for great political crimes. That law remained until the year 1795, and then the punishment was restored in cases of murder. After the year 1808, when the French took possession of all Italy, the French code—not the bloody code of the French Revolution, but the penal code, coupled with the Code Napoleon — was the law of Tuscany until 1847–8. At that time capital punishment was again abolished, but whether from political apprehension or from whatever other cause I cannot pretend to say. In the year 1852 capital punishment was again restored, and so remained until 1859, when it was again abolished in Tuscany. Your Lordships are aware that although Tuscany then became part of Italy, Florence and Tuscany still remained autonomous, each having their own laws. I do not think it would be honest or fair to attempt to support my argument by citing the result of the abolition of capital punishment during the very short time that has elapsed since 1859. Indeed, in my opinion you cannot rely upon these statistics unless you bring a large amount of knowledge to bear upon them of the state of society, the aspirations of different pretenders to power, and a variety of other circumstances. Unless you can thus correct the inferences, undoubtedly statistics are very likely to mislead. Among the other papers reported from Italy is a very interesting report from the Minister of Justice to the King of Italy. I will venture to trouble your Lordships with a few of the remarks he makes—
"It is not, moreover, out of place to remark, although a serious thing to say, that in the second period the authors of the homicides committed for the sake of robbery do not appear to have been discovered in the greater part of the eases, and that hence the authorities of public security have not succeeded in discharging efficaciously their duty. On the contrary, it is quite certain— and not only the public journals, but also communications from my Colleague, the Minister of the Interior, assure me of the truth of my assertion—that during some years, and more especially for the last few months, Tuscany has suffered from frequent and serious murders committed, for the most part, for the sake of plunder. It is customary, in the cases of premeditated homicide, to note the cause which may have induced the crime, since it is generally to be attributed to passions easily discerned—such as revenge, jealousy, &c.; but, on the contrary, no personal motive except that of cupidity incites to murder for the sake of robbery, and with this sole object in view the murderer directs his attack against inoffensive persons, with whom he may have no acquaintance; and it is thus easy to understand that

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it is less difficult to trace perpetrators of premeditated murder than those who have committed their crime for the mere lust of gain; and so much the more, that the first are people living in the country, and well known there (except in the case of hired assassins), and the second may belong to another country, and have no personal relation with their victim."
I will not attempt to deduce from this report anything favourable to my own view of the case, but at least I may say that it does not show that the punishment of death may be safely abolished. The result has been a considerable increase of murders; but that may have arisen—and I think in all probability has arisen—from other causes than the abolition of the punishment of death. Be-sides Tuscany there are some of the Cantons of Switzerland in which capital punishment does not exist, and of late some of the very small German States, such as Oldenburg, Nassau, and two or three others have abolished it. But, if we look to all the great States, which are not wanting in humanity, and are endeavouring to harmonize their laws with the existing requirements of society, we shall find that capital punishment is still retained in them in full vigour. I need not say that in France it is still retained. The Return for the last year before the Commissioners shows that there had not been less than twenty-five executions, besides several convictions in which the sentence of death was not carried out. In Austria, in Prussia, in Italy (except Tuscany), in Sweden, Denmark, and Russia — in fact, wherever you go — the punishment of death is awarded to murder, and in many countries for other crimes also. I do not say that we should follow a multitude to do evil; but it is something to know that the course we are adopting is that which all our neighbours also adopt. Many persons have said—and I think this argument has been used in the House of Commons—that we ought not to look to the countries that surround us, but to those which have sprung from us, and which occupy the great continent of North America. The Commissioners have Returns from some seven of the States of North America—Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, Wisconsin, and three of the New England States — Massachusetts, Maine, and Rhode Island. It is quite a fallacy, however, to suppose that capital punishment is abolished in those seven States. It exists there for the most part in as great force as this Bill purposes it should exist in this country, except only in Rhode
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Island and Wisconsin. Now, Rhode Island comes within the same category as Nassau and the very small States of Germany. We do not know enough of the state of society in such very limited populations to take an example from them. So far is it from being abolished in Pennsylvania, New York, and Massachusetts, that it exists there in full vigour, and the law is administered in very much the same spirit as it is proposed by this Bill that it shall be administered in this country. That being so, I think I have justified myself in expressing my confidence that your Lordships will go with the Commissioners, that capital punishment must be retained. It has always occurred to me that if it is to be abolished in to to, of course the punishment next in severity— penal servitude for life—ought to be substituted for it. What, then, could be done with a convict under the extreme penalty of imprisonment who murdered his keeper or warder? Every precaution would no doubt be taken to prevent such an occurrence, but it is certainly possible that it might be committed. The convict would then commit the murder with impunity, because he would be undergoing the severest punishment which the law allowed, and you would have no power of imposing the penalty of death for the offence. These being the grounds on which I venture to think that capital punishment ought not to be abolished, I have now to call your Lordships' attention to the provisions of the Bill. Substantially the Commissioners make four recommendations; but the great object is to define the class of murder for which parties, if convicted, shall suffer the extreme penalty of the law. They proceed, therefore, to divide murder into two classes—murder of the first and murder of the second degree. Under the head of murder of the first degree they propose to include such crimes as, unless under very exceptional circumstances, deserve the extreme penalty of the law. Under the head of murder of the second degree they include those cases in which it is not necessary to carry the extreme penalty of the law into effect. This is the course pursued in several of the North American States; and a very enlightened gentleman who has lately visited the country states that there is no difficulty in carrying the law into effect. The Commissioners then divide murders into several heads, the object of which is in the first place to include those which are ordinarily

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called deliberate—that is to say, those in which no doubt can be entertained of the wilful intent of the parties who have committed them; and secondly, those which have been perpetrated for the purpose of escaping from the consequences of guilt. I ventured, when this Bill came before me, to suggest an addition to those enumerated under this last head, which is where murder is committed on a peace officer in the discharge of his duty. When this Bill was first put into my hands, which was early in March, I confess there were some things in it which I did not altogether approve. And here, perhaps, I ought to state to your Lordships that I was one of the persons examined by the Commission long before I had the honour of receiving the Great Seal. I gave on that occasion the best evidence in my power; but, knowing that your Lordships will see in this Bill some few matters—for they are only a few—against which my evidence was directed, I think it only due to your Lordships to mention that fact. I felt that there were considerable difficulties in carrying into effect some of the provisions which the Commissioners recommended. It appeared to me, however, that I should not be performing my duty if before asking your Lordships to read the Bill a second time I did not submit it to the Judges, to see how far they thought its provisions could be certainly and easily carried into effect—because, if there be one thing more than another which it is desirable to avoid, it is every possible approach to technicality —every facility for persons getting off for any other cause than that which is distinctly stated. Most of the Judges were on circuit at the time, and it was not until the circuits were over that I got the answers from most of the Judges. Several of them had been examined before the Commission. They most cordially pointed out what would practically be improvements in some of the clauses, and before your Lordships go into Committee on the Bill I will frame Amendments to meet the views of the Judges whenever they appear to me to be right. The next recommendation of the Commission to which I will call your Lordships' attention is this—they think it fit that there should be a power in the Judge, upon considering the case, if he did not think it one in which the person should be executed, to cause judgment to be recorded without following it up by pronouncing sentence. Now, that is a thing to which great objection, and I think
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justly, is felt by the Judges. While the law stands as it is now, when sentence is pronounced everybody knows and feels that the sentence of death is the sentence of the law. But when once it comes to be in the power of the Judge to say that sentence shall be recorded but not passed, it becomes the sentence of the Judge and not of the law; and I certainly feel that if you assent to such a provision, you will place the Judges in a position of very considerable embarrassment, and perhaps impair the respect in which they are now held. The third recommendation which the Commissioners make is with regard to a subject which has always been felt to be one of very great difficulty—namely, infanticide. Now it is a singular thing that in some of the codes in Europe, and among them the French, the murder of a new-born infant, instead of being considered as a lighter form of murder, is looked upon as one of the gravest forms that crime can assume, and is one for which the remission of punishment very seldom follows. ["Hear, hear!"] My noble and learned Friend seems to approve that view of the case. Now, I cannot say that I go so far as that. I think that when infanticide occurs in ordinary cases, it is the act of some poor forlorn woman in great distress, and that it is her wish rather to prevent a human being from coming into the world, if she could only do it, than to murder it. But there are other cases of infanticide in which the crime is as great as any murder can be. I was examined before the Commission on this subject, and I said the great difficulty which I felt was in defining the line. Suppose a person murders a child for the purpose of succeeding to an estate —and there are fifty other cases in which infanticide would be greatly aggravated— in that case, no doubt, it would deserve to be punished capitally. But I quite agree with the Commissioners that it is desirable to put this crime on a different footing from other cases of murder. They say that after a certain time—after seven days—anybody doing injury to the child shall be liable to severe punishment. There shall be no necessity to prove whether the child was born alive or not, but if it be found that wounds were inflicted on the child, then severe punishment shall be inflicted, provided always that the circumstances are such that the crime of murder can be sustained. They further recommend the abolition of the principle whereby, when a woman charged with the murder of her child is acquitted

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on that count, she is sentenced to punishment for concealment of birth. The fourth recommendation of the Commissioners— and in that I confess they have my entire concurrence, although, when first asked to consider it, I thought it open to grave doubt—is with respect to the publicity or non-publicity of executions. On this subject, as on all others, we have to deal with a balance of testimony, and a balance of advantages and disadvantages, I do not doubt that there are cases in which a criminal, having witnessed an execution, may have been so struck with horror as to have been in some degree reclaimed. But I think the disadvantage arising from the enormous accumulation of persons to witness these disgusting scenes is so great that we are bound to try whether we cannot substitute some other mode of carrying capital sentences into effect for those public executions. I find that in almost all the States in America, and many in Europe, that is the conclusion at which they have either arrived or are on the point of arriving. I think most of the theoretical objections to private executions are absurd. The notion that a person may be tortured, or if he be a rich man, may bribe the authorities and so get off, might have prevailed 300 or 400 years ago, but would not be likely to prevail now. A suggestion has occurred to me from what has taken place in Denmark, which I think very good. It is that all the great criminals in confinement should always be witnesses of the executions, which may then possibly have some deterring effect. But that the execution should be carried out where public decency and morals shall not be shocked in the way they have been of late years, I have no hesitation in saying, meets with my entire concurrence. I have heard it said that there are great concourses of people in a variety of other cases, and that you cannot prevent it. No doubt. But there is this demoralizing effect on the enormous multitudes assembled to witness an execution, that they are crowded together, committing every sort of crime, and that their proceedings are unmitigated by the presence of persons of the upper or educated classes. It is the sort of occasion on which the lowest and most abandoned of the community hold a Saturnalia all to themselves. It is highly expedient on these grounds that a change should be made in our law, and that change is proposed by the Bill of which I now move the second reading.
Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2ª."—(The Lord Chancelor.)
THE EARL OF MALMESBURY: My Lords, the position taken by the noble and learned Lord (the Lord Chancellor), and the great authority of the Members of whom the Commission was composed, certainly make it difficult for any one to object with any weight to the recommendations that have been made. If the subject were entirely practical, the question could be reduced to one of practical proof, and we should none of us differ from the noble and learned Lord; but the question is philosophical as well as practical, and therefore there is no disrespect to the Members of the Commission, whose labours have been most efficiently discharged, in saying that I do not entirely agree with their recommendations. I agree with them upon every point except that involved in the fourth recommendation—that is the one in which they recommend that executions should be privately conducted within the walls of the gaol. We know all that can be said on the subject; and I feel as strongly as the noble and learned Lord does the objections to the horrors attending public executions. But upon a subject like this we must not give way to the natural sentiments which civilization prompts. We must look to the practical workings of the human mind —to the effect of the operation of the law upon the human mind in its worse state. The noble and learned Lord said properly that, in this country and in civilized society the primary object of punishment is that it should be deterrent. I suppose it was at first inflicted, in a lower state of society, with a feeling of vengeance; but when civilization advanced punishment was inflicted from higher motives, and with the view to deter from the commission of crime. Now, what are the feelings of mankind with respect to punishment? It is not only the fear of punishment that works upon the human mind, it is also the fear of disgrace; and the greatest criminal in the world, you may depend upon it, balances in his own mind the different shades of disgrace sufficiently to feel that there is a very great difference between a public execution and a private one. What is the proof of that? What is the first thing that is done after a man is condemned to death? Even when it is expected that he will be condemned, the first thing thought of is to keep out of his reach every instrument by which he

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can commit suicide; and the commonest feeling with criminals condemned to death is the desire to anticipate their execution by suicide in order to avoid the disgrace it brings with it. Gaolers of experience will tell that what they have to fear most is that men under sentence of death will commit suicide. There is something disgraceful in the idea of the halter, in an execution before an immense throng, in the execrations that greet a man when he appears on the scaffold. That all these things have terrors for the convicts I know, for I have heard it from their own lips. It is unfair to judge from aualogy of rewards and punishment? They are inseparably connected, and one cannot well be considered without the other. Do not rewards lose half their value if they are given privately, instead of publicly? Are they not doubled in value if they ore given openly, before an approving throng of persons, with whom the recipients are well acquainted? It is precisely the same feeling which acts upon the human mind in the case of a man condemned to death —he would prefer to commit suicide if he could and he would prefer death within the walls of a prison to being exposed to the view of the multitude. I cannot but think that the English mind would to a certain degree revolt at the idea of a secret execution within the walls of a prison—at the thought that a man was to be strangled in his cell, as if the law hesitated in asserting its justice before the eyes of all men. I feel convinced that if the recommendation of private executions is followed, not many years will elapse before capital punishment is given up altogether. My own feelings and convictions with regard to executions are rather contrary in direction to those of the Commissioners. Executions are always carried out at the same places, in the county town; they are always witnessed by the same people, who learn the lesson, if there be one, over and over again. I think that as far as possible, although it could not always be done, executions ought to take place in the localities where the crimes are committed —they would then have very great effect upon the persons living in those localities. But now, if executions are warnings, the people living near the scenes of the crimes really get no warning at all, for they do not see the executions. For a crime committed at a remote country village, a man is executed at the county gaol. It would add very much to the terror of the
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criminals to know that they would he executed, as it were, at their own doors, before the faces of very many with whom they had been associated and brought up from childhood. I remember that sixty years ago, in the part of the country where I lived, two men were hung for the murder of their father. That execution made the greatest impression upon the people of the neighbourhood, and the tradition of it has passed down to this day. If public executions are continued, I think it would be of great importance that, as far as possible, they should take place in the localities in which the crimes are committed.
THE BISHOP OF OXFORD: My Lords, I venture to trouble your Lordships with a few observations in reply to the noble Earl who has just spoken (the Earl of Malmesbury). Ten years ago your Lordships were kind enough to grant a Select Committee upon my Motion. I was Chairman of it, and we took a large amount of evidence, examining gaolers and persons who had had the custody of condemned felons, and those who had been called upon to attend public executions. The evidence given by all these persons, without exception, was in direct contradiction of what has just been suggested by the noble Earl. They said that, in their judgment, public executions had a direct tendency—not to deter from crime, but to create a morbid interest in the man who was executed, and to make a hero of him with the class of society in which he moved, and that the knowledge of this reacted upon the man himself, and, instead of making the prospect of his death more terrible to him, it tended to diminish its terrors. I was fully convinced of the truth of that view. I think nothing more tends to do away with the great horror that ought to accompany the taking away the life of a criminal than the accidents which belong to the public part of an execution. Those who go to witness an execution go in the worst possible state of mind to profit by it. The man himself, encouraged by the presence of those who may have been his associates in crime, may be led to brazen it out; if he do, he becomes then the reverse of the example that was intended, and men go away from the sight, having found their expectations of being shocked very imperfectly realized. I remember particularly the evidence of the late Mr. Clay, the chaplain of the Preston Gaol. He said that the first time he was called to attend a public execution, he ex-

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pected that he should not be able to witness it without fainting; but such was the effect upon his mind of the various circumstances of the event, and the interest in the accidents of it, rather than the realization of what were the essence of it, that he found the sense of horror almost gone before the execution. He added—
"If I had been on the other side of a wall, and had known what was being done, the effect upon my mind would have been tremendous; but the accidental circumstances which I was engaged in watching took away from my own mind that sense of terror which I had anticipated."
The evidence which we collected from other countries all pointed to the same result. We examined witnesses and we received communications from various parts of the world, and, without a single exception, the attestation was, that there had grown up a far greater dread of executions in the minds of the classes of the people it was desired to affect since the executions had taken place in private than had ever existed while they took place in public. There was one recommendation of the Committee which I should like to bring under the notice of the noble and learned Lord. It was that at the moment of the execution the fact of its taking place should be intimated to the people by the tolling of a bell within the prison, or something of that sort. It one country the practice was to hoist a black flag. Now, this addresses itself to the imaginative faculty of the persons whom you wish to deter, because it tells them what one of their fellow-creatures has been brought to by crime, and fixes their attention on the subject for the moment. That is recommended by the Committee which sat in 1S56, and the evidence taken showed the good effect of such a practice. As I sat upon that Committee, I hope your Lordships will pardon me for addressing you on the subject.
LORD ROMILLYsaid, he thought the balance of evidence and the balance of reason were in favour of the entire and the total abolition of the punishment of death, and he would state a few reasons, as concisely as he could, to show that such abolition was desirable. It was simply a question of the balance of evidence. There was one consideration which arose in the case, and which ought to be taken into consideration. The object of punishment was twofold — namely, the deterring others from committing crime, and the reformation of the criminal. Now, when the punishment of death was inflicted the re-
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formation of the criminal was of course out of the question. It might, indeed, be said that the reformation of a murderer was a thing very unlikely to take place, and that society had nothing to do with it if he were not again to be let loose upon society. But it was the duty of the Government to consider the interests of all persons—even of the criminals themselves; and if society had no interest in the matter, still the interest of the criminal ought not to be altogether disregarded. The important question to be considered, however, was the deterrent effect, because upon that was founded the great argument in favour of inflicting the punishment of death. He believed that the deterrent effect of the punishment of death had been greatly overrated. Almost all the evidence showed that it did not operate at all in cases of violent passions. In the case of murder committed by a person who was either intoxicated or under the influence of some violent passion, such as jealousy, hatred, and the like, the deterrent effect of the punishment of death was nothing. Then, if the deterrent effect was complete in cases of murder, it would have been so in the case of the minor offences which were formerly punishable by death. But experience had shown that this had not been the case. The deterrent effect of a punishment depended principally upon the certainty of its being inflicted, and a less punishment, if certain, would have a much more deterrent effect than a greater one which was less certain. Now, the evidence was distinct on the subject, and their Lordships were no doubt aware that juries constantly required a greater amount of evidence to convict for murder than they did for any other offence. In this they did not act logically, because the only question was whether the fact was proved, and the amount of evidence which was sufficient to convict in a smaller case ought to he sufficient in a greater case. The undoubted fact, however, was that where a criminal was liable to be punished by death juries required a larger amount of evidence than they did in other cases. This introduced another element of doubt, which led to improper acquittals. That this was the effect produced was clear from the species of pleas that were raised to prevent persons from being convicted of murder—such, for example, as the plea of insanity, which was never relied upon except in cases of murder. The tendency of all this was to make

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the criminal think, and justly so, that he had a greater chance of escape. Two reasons which had been urged by his noble and learned Friend required much consideration. First, there was the case of a second murder—where a prisoner had killed his warder, for instance. Now, it was notorious that many persons afflicted with mental disease had the strongest desire to take away the life of another, and yet one rarely if ever heard of the keeper of a lunatic of that description being killed by him. The reason was that in such cases proper precautions were taken. The other argument of his noble and learned Friend was more difficult to answer, and was in his opinion the strongest argument which could be urged in favour of the retention of the punishment of death. His noble and learned Friend had said that if a man committed a crime with great violence he ought to be punished very severely indeed, and that if capital punishment were abolished it would be impossible to inflict a higher degree of punishment upon murderers than was inflicted upon persons convicted of other crimes attended with great violence. In his opinion, however, the perpetual imprisonment accompanied by the infliction of corporal punishment at intervals would more effectually deter from crime than the fear of the punishment of death. He was not in favour of the infliction of corporal punishment in any cases, but in the case of murderers he did not think any person could blame society for having corporal punishment inflicted. But though he admitted there was considerable weight in the argument of the noble and learned Lord, he thought it was more than met by the other evils attending the punishment of death. In the first place, it should be borne in mind that though murder was sometimes committed for the sake of plunder, yet in the great majority of cases plunder formed no part whatever of the motive for committing the crime. Now, that was a very important consideration, because it showed that the class which committed murders was different from the class which merely attacked property. The Commissioners were struck by the observation made by many witnesses that persons who live by robbery never commit murder, at least not intentionally. The witnesses who gave evidence attributed this fact to the deterrent effect of the punishment of death. He, however, believed they were utterly mistaken, and that the people who lived by robbery were deterred from com-
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mitting murder by the natural horror of taking away human life. It was painful to consider what class of persons became professional thieves. The son of a thief was almost certain to follow his father's calling—and, indeed, except in very rare cases, he was unable to do anything else. He was brought up in the notion that he and society were at war, and that thieving was merely an offence against society, and not a crime in itself. But that man would never think of committing murder, this was admitted by all the witnesses who were examined on the point. Now, in his opinion, that feeling ought to be increased and perpetuated by abolishing the punishment of death. With regard to public and private executions, he agreed with the view taken by the right rev. Prelate (the Bishop of Oxford), but he might remark that many of the objections to public executions would apply to private executions also. A man on whom the punishment of death was inflicted by society was sure, in whatever manner the punishment might be inflicted, to be invested with a certain degree of interest in the estimation of the public. It was impossible to prevent this. There was no quality possessed that was more esteemed by mankind than courage, and that in all phases of life. The possession of that quality was most strongly shown in the composure and coolness with which a man met death; and, therefore, there was the strongest possible motive for the convict to screw up his nerves into that state which would induce his friends and the public to believe he died with composure. The executions of criminals in this country were injurious in respect of the morbid feeling excited by their demeanour at the moment of execution. The most atrocious criminals were invested with a species of heroism if they met death on the scaffold with calmness and composure. This feeling had been manifested to the extent of ladies adorning criminals as they were on their way to the scaffold. That sentiment could not exist to the same extent under the system proposed by this Bill; but it would still exist to a great extent. He might remind their Lordships that in Belgium capital punishment had been abolished. It appeared from the evidence taken by the Commissioners that it had been abolished, restored, and abolished again, and that its abolition had been attended with satisfactory results. According to the recommendations of the Commissioners the punishment of murder was to

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be apportioned according to the circumstances of atrocity with which it was attended; and by the Bill of the noble and learned Lord the crime was to be divided into murder of the first and murder of the second degree; the punishment for murder of the second degree was to be nothing-less than penal servitude for seven years. Now their Lordships would permit him to put a case such as that in which a thief, while endeavouring to steal a henroost, accidentally shot a man. This, under the Bill of his noble and learned Friend, would be a murder of the second degree; but if they inflicted seven years' penal servitude for such an accident, they would be inflicting a punishment much more severe than could properly be awarded for such an offence. Suppose a gentleman employed one of his tenants as his bailiff to receive his rents and lay out money on his property, and suppose that afterwards he thought fit to distrain on this bailiff as his tenant for rent due from him, and that the tenant denied owing any rent and said that if the accounts were taken it would appear that a balance was due to him. If, in resisting that distress, the tenant killed a man, the question whether his act was a justifiable homicide or a murder would depend upon which side of the account the balance lay in what might be a very complicated account. He would ask his noble and learned Friend to consider what would be the working of the Bill in cases such as that. In connection with the question of capital punishment there was another important consideration. No one could have studied the history of any people without seeing the influence which the laws of the country exercised over the manners and habits of the people; and he thought observation must convince us that this was the case to a greater extent in England than perhaps in any other country: There was also in this country a great respect for the sanctity of human life and the horror of seeing a human creature perish by the hand of society; and he believed that if the State declared that for no crime under the sun would it invade the sac redness of human life, but that even in the worst cases would confine itself to punishments of other descriptions, it would do more—not suddenly, but by degrees, and with the progress of education — to deter persons in every class of the population from the commission of murder than would be done by the infliction of the most severe torture
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that could be devised. Though, of course, he did not offer the slightest opposition to the progress of the measure, he had felt desirous at the earliest possible moment to express his feelings on this important question.
LORD REDESDALEsaid, he was not satisfied with this Bill, and he objected to it on more than one ground. In the first place, he thought that making some murders offences of a second degree of enormity would tend to create a feeling that some murders were more or less excusable; and this would be highly mischievous. He was of opinion that it should be held to be a very grave crime to shoot a Custom House officer, a gamekeeper, or any other person while acting in the discharge of a duty. A murder of that kind might be one of the grossest character, and, therefore, one which ought to be punished with the severest punishment. In this country infanticide had greatly increased of late, and he had no doubt that to a large degree this might be attributed to the fact that for a great number of years hardly any one had been executed for that crime— even in cases where malice was most clearly proved the women had been let off. He believed this failure of justice in cases of infanticide arose from an objection to execute women; but the result had been a feeling among a large portion of the population that infanticide was not a crime of deep dye. He confessed that to his mind the murder by a mother of her own offspring was the most revolting of all crimes, for it was an act against which the instinct of the lower animals revolted. It was the distinction that had been made between this and other murders as regards the manner in which the punishment had been carried out that had led women to believe that the removal of infants which were a burden to them was an excusable act. The noble and learned Lord (Lord Romilly) thought that in cases of wilful murder corporal punishment might be periodically inflicted in addition to imprisonment. Now, he ventured to think that public opinion would be so opposed to the infliction of torture on persons who were to be confined for life, that it would be impossible to maintain such a description of punishment. It came to this, therefore, that there would only be imprisonment for life or for a term of years as punishment for murderers. But imprisonment for life would be certain to lead to insanity in a great many cases, and what was to be

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done when insanity commenced to manifest itself? Was the person to he kept in prison until he became insane, or was the sentence to be put an end to? Again, as to the certainty of punishment which was urged in favour of the Bill—what was the meaning of certainty of punishment? Was death always to be inflicted in cases of murder of the first degree? Was there to be no hope of remission of any term of imprisonment? Their Lordships might depend on it that in this respect matters would just remain as they were at present —whether founded or not the hope of remission would always exist. He apprehended that much difficulty would he felt in deciding as to which class a particular murder belonged—a much greater difficulty than was now experienced when legally the crime was either murder or manslaughter, and it was left to the judgment of those who could properly weigh and determine the instances in which the extreme penalty of the law should be awarded. He avowed he was one of those who felt strongly that by Divine decree death was the punishment awarded to the murderer. It was the law laid down by God at a time when there was no special code, "Whoso shed-deth man's blood by man shall his blood be shed." He should not feel at liberty, therefore, to vote for any Bill which would abolish death for murder. He would not argue as to the deterrent effect of any other punishment. To sit in judgment or to question whether they should award a less judgment where God has awarded a greater wa3 a matter which we ought not to entertain. He feared that the effect of this Bill would be to unsettle the minds of people as to the enormity of the offence of depriving a fellow-creature of life. He must, therefore, say "Not-Content" to the Motion to read it a second time; hut as he knew his views were not shared in by a majority of their Lordships he should not put the House to the trouble of dividing on the question.
LORD DE ROSsaid, that some advantage might be gained in the present discussion by remembering what was the practice in European armies. It was, he believed, the invariable rule that soldiers should be present at military executions, and although, as a class, they were not easily affected, the results were always very extraordinary. He had always heard it said that during the Peninsular War the contrast between public and private executions was very marked. During that
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war the Duke of Wellington had thirteen men executed; the French, in the same period, executed 250. The English made a great parade on such occasions, mustering the troops and marching them past the culprit before he was shot and again past his body after death. The French conducted their executions without any such parade. But it was universally observed that fewer executions were necessary in the British army, and this was attributed to the manner in which they were carried out. Upon one occasion, when on foreign service, duty made him a spectator of a public execution. There was all that bravado which a noble and learned Lord had described, for one of the men came upon the scaffold dancing, and was with difficulty restrained from playing antics, but he must say he never saw anything like the consternation and horror excited on that occasion among the crowd by the spectacle of death.
THE DUKE OF ARGYLL: My Lords, this appears to me to be a subject on which we ought all to speak with much reserve and difficulty, for when we recollect that only a few years ago, within the recollection of many noble Lords now present, eminent lawyers and divines maintained that it was absolutely necessary to uphold capital punishment in respect of crimes for which we should now think it monstrous to cause it to be inflicted, it is impossible for us not to feel some doubt as to the impressions under which we may now be acting. My noble Friend the Chairman of Committees thinks we are bound to act under a rule of Divine law, which would leave us no discretion whatever, but would bind us to inflict the punishment of death in all cases in which human life was taken. That, I am sure, is an opinion which my noble Friend does not entertain. But my noble Friend forgets that practically, though not in point of law, a discretion is exercised, a distinction is drawn, and a classification is made, and there are many kinds of murder which are not visited with death: and, therefore, I think we may fairly consider, without reference to such a supposed rule of Divine law, what is best for the good of society and of the general principles of Government. I certainly have never been able to make up my mind that in the present state of society the punishment of death could be safely dispensed with. Neither can I accept the doctrine of the noble and learned Lord behind me (Lord Romilly), whose views I can see coin-

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cide with those of men who hold that punishment has only two objects—to deter and to reform the criminal. It appears to mo that there is a third and very legitimate element of punishment upon which society has a right to insist, and that is the retributive element. You deal with men like mere animals if you shut up a murderer, like a tiger, to prevent his killing other persons, and with a hope in the man's case —which, of course, cannot exist in that of the tiger—that he may ultimately become penitent and reformed. It certainly does appear to me that society is, to a certain extent, a minister of Divine justice in inflicting punishment for the crime. [The BISHOP of OXFORD: Hear, hear!] I am glad to find that in that view I have the support of some distinguished Prelates. There are other cases besides those mentioned in this Bill—cases of persons resisting lawful authority, and it appears to me that persons who commit murder in resisting such lawful authority and in furtherance of objects that are unlawful, should be liable to the punishment of death. These, however, I apprehend, are questions of detail with which my noble and learned Friend upon the Woolsack will be willing to deal in Committee. With regard to the holding of executions not in private, but in presence only of the lawfully authorized ministers of the law, I can have no doubt that the course which it is proposed by this Bill to adopt is the right one. Whatever the original idea that was associated with public executions, in practice there can be no doubt that they tend to brutalize the population. At the same time that spectacles such as these are withdrawn from the public gaze, there is, I think, great force in the suggestion that some external sign or symbol should be employed to indicate when the execution is actually taking place. Coupled with the knowledge of what is going on, the tolling of a bell or the hoisting of a black flag would, I believe, make a powerful impression on the imagination of the people.
LORD HOUGHTONsaid, that having brought this subject under the consideration of another Assembly twenty years ago, he might perhaps be allowed to address a few observations to their Lordships. In the first place, he naturally felt deep satisfaction that the principles involved in this measure had received even a partial acceptance. From various executions which he had witnessed he had returned with the conviction that there was about the scene
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nothing of dignity, impressiveness, or solemnity; but that ribaldry, violence, and depravity were its prominent features. Who would dream of taking anybody to a | public execution as a grand moral example, or with the expectation of seeing anything that was not essentially repulsive? There was, he believed, no reason why, without any change of the law, the time and place of holding executions might not be changed, and that under the existing jurisdiction. A remarkable case on this point occurred in 1769. Two men, Doyle and Pulline, were sentenced to be executed at the usual place of execution, which at that time was at Tyburn; but the sheriffs received a warrant directing thorn to execute the prisoners at the most convenient place near Bethnal Green Church—probably the place where the crime had been committed. The sheriffs conceived that they must follow the sentence and not the warrant, which according to their view would be an aggravation of the punishment, and said—
"If this were permitted, the Recorder might change the place of execution to Newgate Street, or even to Newgate itself, and so do away with the boasted usage of public executions, not less satisfactory for the security of the public, than advantageous as a public example."
An eminent lawyer of that day gave it as his opinion, that if the change was not material it should be complied with; and the Judges to whom the question was referred, were of opinion that the time and place were in law no part of the judgment, and that the Recorder's warrant was a lawful authority to the sheriffs as to the time and place of execution. The men were accordingly executed. Tyburn, so long a scandal to the metropolis, with its disgraceful and melancholy story of parading through the streets and stopping at public-houses, had ceased to be; but it was a curious thing that at that time the sheriffs fancied the publicity of the procession to Tyburn was necessary to the security of the subject; that soon afterwards the scene of execution was transferred from Tyburn to the front of Newgate, and would now, he trusted, he transferred from the outside to the inside its walls. The Motion which he brought forward twenty years ago was defeated by Gentlemen entertaining views that in the present day appeared almost as untenable. If the prognostications of the noble and learned Lord should be realized, and if the changes in the law should have the effect of modifying public opinion on the subject of capital punish-

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ment, he for one should not regret such a result. He had for a long time held the same opinions on the subject to which the noble and learned Lord had given expression, and he had no doubt that those opinions Were gradually mating way among the reasonable and religious people of this country, and that the obstacles—and there were obstacles — which presented themselves to the abolition of punishment by death would be removed. How long ago was it, he would ask, since that punishment was deemed to be necessary in the case of political offences for the stability of society? Their Lordships must recollect the course which was taken on the subject by an eminent French statesman in the midst of the confusion consequent on the establishment of the French Republic in 1848. The first important measure which was at that time introduced by the Provisional Government was one declaring the punishment of death for political offences to be abolished. The great contest, he might add, which had recently taken place on the other side of the Atlantic had closed unstained by a single political execution. Such a thing would have seemed impossible to statesmen a hundred years ago, and he hoped that before long a state of things which now seemed impossible to their Lordships would be realized. The truth was that when they came to consider this question of death they got beyond the category of punishment. Death was the punishment of all of us: and no doubt if people would but think of it in time it would deter them from many crimes. When the time arrived when a change should come over the mind of this country with respect to the necessity of inflicting capital punishment their Lordships would, he had no doubt, find that society could subsist without that which was now deemed to be required for its security. He might also state that it was remarked by those who were best acquainted with the habits of the mass of the people, that no class of men spoke so lightly with regard to the future as those who had entered on a criminal life. It was said by Mr. Edward Gibbon Wakefield, who was a good authority on the point, that he had known men, who during the honest period of their lives were men of considerable reflection, become, the moment they had entered on a criminal career, so entirely occupied with the present as altogether to lose sight of ulterior and higher objects, and to cast away all thoughts of a death on the scaffold.
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The Bill before the House would, he believed, effect a great improvement in the law, and he hoped the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack would accede to the suggestion which had been made by the right rev. Prelate (the Bishop of Oxford), and provide that there should be some public sign whenever an execution was taking place within the walls of a prison.
THE EARL OF CARDIGANsaid, that considering the disgust which had been shown at flogging in the army—a punishment which under proper restrictions he considered absolutely necessary for the maintenance of discipline—the suggestion that criminals guilty of murder should be sentenced to perpetual imprisonment, but should be periodically brought out and publicly whipped, was one of the most extraordinary, the most shocking, and the most revolting he had ever heard.
LORD BELPERgave his cordial assent to the Bill, though he could not concur with his noble Friends who wished to abolish capital punishment altogether. He agreed that the definition of murder required revision. That a man who fired off a gun with the intention of killing a fowl, and who accidentally killed a man, should, under certain circumstances, be held to be guilty of murder, was discreditable to our law. But so far from the Bill improving the legal definition of the offence, it seemed to him calculated to make the law still more uncertain.
LORD ROMILLYsaid, he had never suggested that murderers should periodically receive corporal punishment; on the contrary, he was in favour of the abolition of corporal punishment. All that he had said was intended as an answer to those who suggested that it was impossible to devise any special penalty for murder short of death.
THE EARL OF SHAFTESBURYsaid, he had some hope3 that the Bill would do a good deal towards the protection of infant life. The protection which it would afford would, however, be imperfect unless it were supplemented by a collateral measure, taking cognizance of the number of stillborn children. That number was at present very large — amounting to several thousand—every year, and as they were buried without registration or inquiry there were strong grounds for believing that a considerable portion of those who were placed under that category were actually murdered. Children said to be still-born were put in the hands of the sexton, were

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buried, and no record of them was kept. The subject was one which had been very much under his own consideration and that of others, and it was, he thought, possible that a measure might be framed by which accurate information with respect to the number of such children might be secured. As to executions taking place within the walls of a prison, he was of opinion that it would be, on the whole, an excellent arrangement. It was, however, he believed, the fact, that although the scene round the scaffold when a person was about to be I executed was usually one of noise and disturbance and obscenity, the result of the assembling together of the lowest class of "roughs," yet a large number of persons came away deeply impressed on such occasions. Yet he was satisfied that, on the whole, the execution of the prisoners within the walls of the prison would have a much more salutary and deterrent effect, He trusted that the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, when he came to enact that clause, would take care to provide that there should be ample testimony to the fact of the execution; because he was quite sure that the great mass of the people would be anxious that some of their own class, even, should be admitted to see that the execution had been duly carried out. He thought such a system would have the best effect on the criminals themselves. He did not believe that the sense of shame had much influence on that class; indeed, he was convinced that in the great class from which murderers were taken the sense of shame was wholly extinct; and such men often looked forward to the time when they would appear on the scaffold and publicly exhibit their hardened state of mind to a crowd of their companions. But if these men knew that they would be executed within the walls of the gaol, and that they would have no opportunity of making such an exhibition on the scaffold, the impression produced on their minds would, he believed, he very serious; and he was sure that if the execution were attended by the tolling of the bell, the his play of the black flag, and similar accompaniments, the imagination of the people outside would be deeply impressed. With regard to the feeling of the criminal class itself as to the justice of the punishment of death, he could state—and many persons still more conversant with that class than he was would bear him out—that the feeling among it was, that murder should he expiated by the death of the murderer.
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Only that morning a remarkable testimony was given to him on that point by a man who held in his house three times a week meetings of all the thieves and disorderly persons that he could get together, in the hope of doing them some good in a religious or moral sense. That man told him —and as the case was still the subject of inquiry, it would be better not to mention the particular criminal's name—that from every one of those persons, and they were very numerous, he had heard but one opinion—namely, that so fearful a criminal ought to be executed.
THE LORD CHANCELLORexplained, that when he said that no crime should be capitally punished except murder, he did not, of course, mean to exclude high treason.
After a few words from Lord DENMAN,
Motion agreed to: Bill read 2ª accordingly.

QUALIFICATION FOR OFFICES ABOLITION BILL—(No. 41.)—(The Lord Houghton.)

  COMMITTEE, REPORT.
  House in Committee (according to Order).
  LORD HOUGHTON, in moving that the House go into Committee on this Bill, said, he thought it would be better, after the favourable reception given to the measure by their Lordships at a previous stage, if it were allowed to proceed in its present form. The question of a re-construction of the oaths and declarations taken and made by municipal functionaries might perhaps be one very well worth considering; but it was not necessary, and it might not be convenient, to consider it in connection with that particular Bill.
  THE EARL OF DERBYregretted that the noble Lord had not acted on the suggestion which he had thrown out to him the other day, because at present they were legislating in a very slovenly mode in regard to the oaths taken by municipal officers. The oaths taken by Members of the Legislature having now been reduced to one plain, simple, and uniform shape, he thought a similar course ought to be followed in respect to the oaths taken by municipal officers and other persons. There was one part of the Bill which extended its provisions to any declarations taken under any other Act than those specified. This he thought very objectionable.
  LORD HOUGHTONsaid, this was intended to apply to any Act not formally repealed. He hoped Her Majesty's Government would yet bring in a Bill which would regulate the oath to be taken by all persons. The present Bill applied to England only, and any improvement ought to extend to Scotland and Ireland.
  Bill reported, without Amendment; and to be read 3ª on Thursday next.
  House adjourned at half past Seven o'clock, to Thursday next, half past Ten o'clock.