The Sun.
London, England, 1864-05-04 00:00:00

LEGAL PROCEDURE IN JERSEY.

Mr. PAULL asked the Secretary of State for the Home
Department whether his attention had been drawn to a bill
intitled " a Bill the amend the Constitution, Practice, and
Procedure of the Court of the Island of Jersey," purporting
to deal with the judicial establishments and taxation of the
said island, and asked whether such bill had been intro-
duced with the concurrence and approval of her Majesty's
Goverment.

Sir G. GREY said that his attention had been drawn to
this subject in consPquence of the bill that had been laid on
the table by his hon. and learned friend the member
for Southwark. That bill was reai a second time,
but he understood that it would not be proceeded
with at present. A similar bill was introduced about
three years ago, and there was no dissent to the measure
ou the part of the Government, or he believed any member
of the house.

Mr. BRIGHT said he wished to know if the right hon.
gentleman had expressed any concurrence in this bill out of
the holm.

Sir G. GREY said that no communication hal taken
place between him and the hon. and learned member who
introduced the bill, and he had expressed no opinion on the
subj ict fut ther than what he had stated in the house.
ALLEGED BUTCHERY OF INDIANS SEEKING
PROTEC CIoN IN BRITISH TERRITORY.

Mr. HENNESSY asked the Secretary of State for the
Colonies, if it was true,that Major Hatch, commanding the
United States troops in Minnesota, applied in the month of
March li.st to the Governor of the Hudson's Bay Company
at Red River for permission to pursue and kill within
the British territory, wherever they might be found, a
tribe of Sioux Indians who had fled within the British
boundary for protection ; and if it was true that the Go-
vernor of the Hudson's Bay Company granted their request,
stipulating only that the Indians should not be butchered
in the houses of any of the settlers with whom they had
sought refuge.

Mr. CARDWELL said that inquiries had been insti-
tuted, from which it appeared that there had been much
exaggeration oa this subject. Steps had been adopted to
prevent the murder of innocent women and children.
PUNISHMENT OF DEATH.

Mr. EWART moved for a select committee to inquire
into the expediency of maintaining the punishment of death.
The hon. member, at some length, urged the usual argu-
ments in favour of the abolition of capital punishment, and
referred to those countries where it had been abolished
to show that the remission of capital punishment had not
been followed by any increase in the crime of murder. He
went in detail into statistics, and cited the authority of several
learned judges in support of his views, and denounced the
punishment of death as a failure in deterring from the com-
mission of murder, and opposed to the growing opinion and
Christian sentiment of the day.
Mr. DENMAN seconded the motion, and contended
that the effect of capital punishment practically was to in-
crease instead of diminish crime. The natural horror which
persons felt in condemning a human being to death led
to an exactitude of evidence being required that in many
cases totally defeated the ends of justice, and in many in-
stances prevented the possibility of conviction, particularly
where females were concerned. He was able to bear
personal testimony to that fact from having been profes-
sionally engaged in the trial of persons in-
dicted for murder. This subject had not been brought
before the house since 18.51, and as there was a great
deficiency in regard to digested data and information
in reference to it, much benefit would necessarily result
from the inquiries of a select committee. Ho impressed on
the house the fact that in no case where capital punish-
ment had been abolished abroad had it been reimposed.
Lord H. LENNOX proposed as an amendment that a
select committee he appointed to inTaire into the operation
of the laws relating to capital punishments, and pointed to
the notorious cases of Jessie M'Lachlan, Samuel Wright,
and William Hall, as showing that whilst the first of them,
one of the meat flagrant of criminals, had escaped the ex-
treme punishment of her offaece, the second had been
executed for having taken the life of a woman in a drunken
quarrel, and the third had been vel y properly respited.
This uncertainty about the administration of the law
rendered it desirable, he thought, that the inquiry should
not be restricted within the narrow limits suggested by Mr.
Ewart, but should be more comprehensive in its scope and
objects.
Mr. MITFORD seconded the amendment, recommend-
ing that public executions should be discontinued, as pirates
were now no longer hung in chains at cross-roads or the
heads of traitors stuck nu Temple Bar.
Mr. Alderman ROSE observed that, from his own ex•
perience as one of the Commissioners of the Central Cours,
he could undertake to say that juries for the most part dis•
charged their functions conscientiously, and that capital
punishments were useful in a moral point of view.
After a few words from )fr. NE.eTE,
Sir G. GREY objected to both motion and amendment,
on the pound that the question was not one that constituted
a fit subject for referenee to a committee. Considerable
changes had of late been effected in the criminal law, and for
many years capital punishment had been limited exclusively
to eases of conviction for wilfel murder. He thought it would
not be either safe or expedient to abolish capital punish-
ment altogether, for by so doing the security which now
fenced round human life would be removed, the number of
murders be permanently increased, and the deterring effect
which the apprehension of capital punishment now exer-
cised be destroyed. If any secondary punishment could
be devised that w mid be more effectual far the preservation
of human life he should gladly adopt it, but according to
the judges who were examined before the Lords' Commit-
tee, which opinion agreed with that of the committeetheatselves, the punishment of death ought to be maintainedfor•
offences of the gravest character ; and he believed that no
punishment was se much dreaded as the punishment of
death. The right hon. gentleman stated, however, that
whilst opposed to the motion of the amendment he had no
objection to the notice placed on the paper for the appoi: t-
meat of a royal commission to enquire into the provisions
and operation of the laws under which the punishment of
death is now inflicted in the United Kingdom, and to
report whether it is desirable to wake any alteration.
BRIGHT, alluding to the remarks of the Home Sec-
retary, said he attached little importance to the opinion of
the judges upon this subject; for almost every ameliora-
tion of our criminal code had been carried against the
opinion of the majority of the judges. The question was,
ought capital punishment to be retained or abolished,
and, denying as he did that it was a deterrent of crime,
he contended that it ought to be blotted out of the statute
bock. It was unfortunate that England bad been always
the most barbarous of Christian countries tit punishments;
and so it was now, notwithstanding the punishment of
death was visited upon the crime of murder only, Seeing
what we had dore foe the amelioration of our criminal code

he did not think there was a man with a particle of reason
who believed that human life was more secure because 10
or 12 men were publicly put to death every yea Human
life and its security did not depend upon any su miserable
and barbarous contrivances as that, but up:, a reverence
for human life. If they estimated the neut. ~ a for human
life and put them at 100, and calculat- w much was
owing to our savage laws and how much the reverence
for human life implanted in the human soul, he believed
that only 5 or 10 might be attributed to the influence of law,
whilst 90 or 95 were due to the feeling he had referred to.
When a man was hanged in the face of the public, if the
shocking nature of the punishment operated in the slightest
degree to deter from crime, he undertook to say that b y so
much were the other and greater securities that depended
upon reverence for human life weakened. If a commission
were appointed he hoped no judges would be placed upon
it, but that it would be constituted of men in whom the
house and the country would have confidence, and who
would receive evidence from whatever source it might be
offered them. If that were done he had no doubt the result
would be at least to produce a considerable improvement in
the law.

Mr. NEWDEGATE replied at some length to the ar-
guments of Mr. Bright, which ho pronounced fallacious,
and vindicated the character of the judges from the insinna-
trons thrown out against them by that gentleman. He
repudiated the idea that England was a barbarous country
because she punished with death the snan who robbed her
of one of her citizens.

Mr. GILPIN spoke in favour of tho total abolition of
capital punishment, and Mr. Roebuck and Sir J. Walsh
for its retention.

Mr. HIBBERr suggested that the commission should
include within their inquiries the mode in which public
executions were inflicted in this country.

Mr. MAGUIRE said the Government had acted wisely
in consenting to the appointment of a commission, and ex-
pressed a hope that the present Parliament would conse-
crate its memory by an act which would satisfy the best
feelings of the people, at the same time that it did no injury
to any public interest.

Mr. EWART having intimated his acceptance of the
proposal of the Government, the motion and amendment
were both withdrawn ; and on the motion of Mr. Neste a
resclation was agreed to, to the effect that an address be
presented to her Majesty praying her to issue a Royal
commission to inquire into the provisions and operation of
the laws under which the punishment of death is now
inflicted in the United Kingdom, and the manner in which
it is inflicted, and to report whether it is desirable to make
any alteration therein.

Leave was given to Mr. FER RAND to bring in a bill
for compensating the families of persons killed by boiler
explosions through the neglect or default of the owner.
Sir G. GREY obtained leave to introduce a bill for fur-
ther regulating the closing of publichouses and refreshment
houses within the metropolitan police district ; and
Mr. BASS had leave to bring in a bill for the better re-
gulation of street music within the metropolitan police
dist' ict.

The Insolent Dobtors' Bill, the object of which was to
enable poor debtors imprisoned for sums less than £2O to
obtain their discharge after a short confinement, provided no
lawful cause was shown to the contrary, was read a second
time on the motion of Mr. PAULL after some discussion.
The Customs and Inland Revenue Bill was read a third
time and packed.

The Partnership Law Amendment Bill was committed,
and the other business on the paper having been disposed of,
The house adjourned at 5 minutes past 1 o'clock.

THE WAR IN DENMARK,

(From the Times Special Correspondent at the late Danish,

flea- quarters.)
COPENHAGEN, April 30.
We received yesterday at this place the intelli-
gence of the evacuation of Fredericia. The fall of
that fortress comes closely after the capture of the
Dybbol bastions ; it will be no less speedily followed
by the abandonment of Alsen.

I shou d not at this moment be in Copenhagen
had there been the faintest hope of a different issue
of the contest. From the moment I saw with my
own eyes what I could not have believed on other
people's report—when I saw, on the morning of the
19 h, masses of Prussian infantry coming out of the
Dybbol bastions taken by them the day before, and
marching dow❑ the hill in serried ranks to the
tete-de-pont, and to the very margin of the Sound,
—when I saw, on the other side, the Danes stand-
ing idly to their guns at the Church Battery with-
out firing a shot, when hardly a shot could be fired
without striking almost a bout portant into the
enemy's columns—from that moment, I say, I felt
that there must be some reason for the overween-
ing rashness of the Prussians, and for the inaction
and forbearance of the Danes. At first. I thought
a temporary suspension of hostilities had been privily
agreed upon, but day after day passed and rve re-
mained in the island iu a state neither of war nor
truce. The two hostile armies stood looking at each
other across the water; a cannon shot at very rare
intervals was exchanged ; a parlementaire from time
to time rowed across on either side to settle matters
about the dead and wounded, but the Prussians
evidently were in no hurry to force their way across
the Strait, and the Dines were in no mood to
attempt to disputa the enemy's passage.
Day after day, as I rode about the island, I was
struck with the rapid disappearance of the relics
of the Danish army. The loss of Dybbol occurred
on the Monday. On Tuesday night three regi-
ments were secretly embarked. On the following
day the battalion of the Guards, the only corps
that was yet intact, was smuggled away. The
headquarters had been removed from Utkebol to
Horup Hay, as if their business was not to lead the
troops into the field, but to see them safely out of it.
Only one division, we were told, was left for the de-
fence of Ms ; the main part of the army was hasten-
ing to Jutland. That division, however, as far as I
could ascertain, did not exceed 2,000 or 3,000 men,
and its artillery consisted of about 12 field-pieces.
' On Saturday morning the Staff embarked for Funen,
and I preceded it. I understood that headquarters
were to be established at Assens, not at Fredericia,
nor even at Middlefart, and then I concluded there
would be no more fighting either in Ala or Jutland,
and travelled to Copenhagen with the conviction
that the war was at an end.

I was not mistaken ; during the lad few days, we
are now informed the troops and materiel had been
gradually withdrawn from Fredericia. A trifling
skirmish occurred the day before yesterday at out-
posts, on the left, on the banks of the Overswonaeso.
'The penes withdrew behind that broad ditch in the
evening, and during the night they quitted the for-
tress and came across into Funen. The few remain-
ing defenders of Alsen will also give their enemies
the slip, at no distant period, if they have a chance.
The cavalry division, under Linderkrone, which is
now far away in North Jutland, will embark on the
first opportunity, and the whole Cimbrian peninsula
will lie at the discretion of the Austro-Prussians.
The Danes have shown in these backward move-
ments the same adroitness which characterized
their retreat from the Dannewerk. It is a pity
they were not allowed to exercise the same inge-
nuity in falling back from their position at Dybbol,
when it had become untenable. They have now
greatly facilitated, if not altogether anticipated,
the work of the Landon Conference. There is now
a virtual armistice between the Danes and the Ger-
mans, unless the latter take it into their heads to
cross over into Funen, an attempt which would
seem incredible, and in which they might pos-
sibly meet with greater difficulties than they arc
likely to foresee, Evidently Funen has now be-
come the place d'arnie of the Danish army. "With
the exception of the narrow strait dividing that
island from Jutland, between Fredericia and Swag-
' hoi on one side and Strip Middlefart or Kongebro
on the other, and with the exception of the inlets
about Fanoe Island, where the water is on some
points hardly more than half a mile across--the
Little Belt is a good auxiliary to a State which has
not yet lost its maritime superiority, and even on
the banks of the narrower channel the Danes by a
concentration of their forces will be able to show a
bold front. Experience hes taught them, however,
that their old-fashioned artillery is no better than
a mere row of popguns when brought into collision
with the rifled cannon of tie Prussians. It is only
this new-fangled engine of war that wore out the
constancy of the Danes at Dybbol and advised the
abandonment of Fredericia, as it will, no doubt, de-
termine the evacuation of Ms. The Danes have
been true to their programme throughout. They
have come to no terms with their enemies; they
have given up nothing; they have merely suffered
them to take evtat they could not withhold. They
have always made at least a Elbow of defence ; they
have put the Prussians to the trouble of the begin-
ning of an attack. The traveller beset by the high-
wayman has net tendered his purse. He has even
buttoned up his coat, and laid his hand on his pocket.
It may be an idle, unavailing protest,; but the world
It
ael take it into acc:)un t, Ind give it such credit as
it deserves.