The Sun.
London, England, 1837-07-05 00:00:00

rate measures—that they had not been considered as :oral-
in.. one system. The offence of stealing five pounds from
a 'dwelling-house was made punishable by transportation
for a term not under fifteen years, or by imprisonment for
five years. Five-years was the extreme of punishment by
imprisonment, fifteen years the minimum by transporta-
tion. Let their Lordships compare that with another part
of the Bills. For breaking into a dwelling-house and
stealing five pounds therefrom the punishment was de-
clared to be seven years the minimum of transportation,
friar years the maximum of imprisonment.—(Hear, hear.)
In the contemplation, therefore, of the other House of
Parliament, and of those measures, it was a less offence
break into a dwelling-house and steal than to steal from a
dwelling-house without any breaking whatever.—( Hear,
hear, hear.) Again, with regard to burglary, a party
broke and entered a house by night; what was the punish-
ment ? Transportation for fifteen years, or imprisonment
for four or five years, he did not remember which ; but
he would rely on the period of transportation. But a per-
son who broke and entered in the daytime was made liable
to transportation for life.—(Hear, hear, hear.) Therefore,
he who broke and entered a house burglariously by night
was considered by the other House and by the framers of
these measures to be guilty of a less serious offence than
he who entered in broad daylight. What, then, was the
result ? If a man committed a burglary it was a less of-
fence than to break and enter a house by day, and to
break and enter a dwelling-house, and steal therefrom, was
a less offence than to steal from a dwelling-house without
any breaking.—(Hear.) That was the careful manner in
which the other House of Parliament had attended to
those Bills—which they had taken three months to con-
sider—(Hear)—but which they expected their Lordships
to pass in a few days ; that was the way in which their
Lordships were treated by the other House.—(Hear.)
The punishment for simple burglary was transportation
for fifteen years. Now, a dwelling-house was a build-
ing with a curtilage, and any building beyond that
curtilage was not held to be connected with it ;
yet in these Bills the offence for ll:caking and entering a
building without the curtilage was made punishable by
transportation for life, so that the provision was, that if the
building formed no part of the house the punishment for
breaking in was to be trnsportation for life ; but if it did
form a part of the house, only transportation for fifteen
years.—(Hear, hear.) Such was the mode of legislation
in the other House of Parliament.—(Hear, hear, and a
laugh.) He would refer to another instance :—lf a per-
son broke into a shop he was to be transported for life, so
that the breaking into a shop was a graver offence than
burglary, which had always been considered by the law as
one of the most serious offences of which a person could
be guilty. He would now point out another instance of
the proportion which appeared in these Bills between the
crime and the punishment. The punishment for the offence
of stealing a lamb was the same as that for shooting at an
officer in his Majesty's navy—" on full pay" too, accord-
ing to the words of the Act, whilst engaged in assisting
the officers of his Majesty's customs—and that not only for
shooting at him, but even for wounding and maiming him.
—(Hear, hear.) Such were the extraordinary incongruities
of these Bills ; and he felt that he should not have properly
discharged his duty, if he had not pointed them out to their
Lordships' attention.—( Cheers.) He was of opinion that
the Bills did not go far enough. Acting upon the principle
of them, he should himself have gone further. There were
other cases which ought, upon the principle of the mea-
sures, to have been included in _their operation. He would
mention one instance. 'When the Riot Act was read if
the persons assembled did not disperse within one hour
they were liable to he convicted as felons, and to be pu-
nished by death—now that, he considered, was a proper
punishment to be abolished. He was not merely relying on
his own authority, for he was confirmed in that opinion by
what he considered the very high authority of a work, pub-
lished by an author who was firmed for having written many
valuable works, both in prose and verse, and who had very
lately distinguished himself by a production which, though
written in very plain and huinble prose, possessed at least
one of the qualities of poetry, for it was full of fiction from
beginning to end—so much so, indeed, that those who had
read that address might perhaps think it an apt illustration
of the lines of the Roman poet—
" pictoribus atque poetis
Quidlibet audcncli scraper fuit sequa potestas."
The historical work, however, to which he wished then to
• allude embraced the history of the principal States of Eu-
rope, from the Treaty of Utrecht almost to the present
time. It war: contained in two small Bvo. volumes ; and if
any of their Lordships were anxious to read it they might
purchase it of Mr. AI urray, of Allseinarle-street.—( A
laugh.) In that work the author had treated the Riot Act
on the most Conservative principles, and 1 tut described it
as a most wise and beneficial measure ; but proceeded to
disapprove of great severity of punishment and to recom-
mend abolition, fur the punishment of death for that offence
of disregarding the Riot Act. Considei in wl o the altl o •

prised that that provision formed no part of the present
measures. Further, there w, re some serious offences ex-•
• istii,g at prest-nt which were entirely abrogated by the Bills
now introduced. For endeavouring to escape from a
wreck there was now a punishment by law ; was there
any snilici,•nt reason why that should cease ? There
appeared to have been a necessity fur some such pu-
nishment in order to present vessels from being plun-
dered but that law had been entirely obliterated.
• Ilitherto to adm'e'ster medicine to a woman for the purpose
• of producing abortion h•id been an offence punishable by
• iaw, whether the woman were or were not in reality preg-
nant at the time. Now, these Acts said that the women
must be pregnant. What grounds were there for that
alteration ? If the person administering the medicine sup-
posed the woman to be pregnant, whether she were an or
• not, the offence was morally the same. llis belief, how-
ever, w•-‘s that the alteration had not been intentional. He
• had no doubt that it had arisen per incupiam—from that
negligence and want of caution which so frequently marked
• the measures sent up to their Lordships from the other
• llouse of Parliament.—(Hear.) There was another point
• which he considered to be also of very great importance—
be meant that of secondary punishments ; and he doubted
much whether transportation was an effectual secondary
punishment ; though upon that point he would not then
trouble the House ; but in those Bills lie found one punish-
ment to which lie never could accede. For certain offences
it was to be in the power of the Court to sentence a man
to solitary confinement for a period of five years. Now, lie
was quite sure that solitary imprisonment for five years was
not a punishment which ought ever to be imposed. That
' was not his own unsupported opinion, for in the appendix to
Archbishop Wheatley's work upon secondary punishments,
that view of die question was clearly made out. He would
also refer their Lordships to an extract from the Report of
the Committee on Prison Discipline on this point. That
Report stated that the system of solitary confinement had
been tried in the prison at New York on eighty persons for
the space of ten months, and had been found so injurious in
its eEets that it had been of necessity abandoned. In
every instance the intellects became weakened after a time,
and unless the prisoners were removed into society the sys-
tem would prove fatal to mind as well as to body. Having
thus drawn their Lordships' attention to these statements,
lie would repeat the opinion with which lie had set out, that
the Bills ought to be proceeded with at present, notwith-
standing the advanced state of the session.
Lord BROUGHAM said that his Noble Friend behind
him (Lord Denman) deserved great credit for the able
manner in which he had brought the matter before the
House. He wished he could with equal sincerity express
his approbation of the manner and time in which the Bills
now before their Lordships had been sent up from the other
House. He certainly thought that it was much to be depre-
cated that Bills of this description should be sent up
apparently as a mere matter of form, to be discussed
and expedited by their Lordships in as many days as
the other House had taken months to consider them. He
still would fain hope with his Noble Friend who bad
spoken last that the Bills might pass this Session, al-
though he was of opinion that considerable scrutiny into
their' enactments would be found necessary, not only of
one Bill with the other, but of all of them with the present
statute book, before the Bills became law, and their Lord-
ships had discharged their duty. His Noble Friend had
pointed out certain inconsistencies which existed in the
present Bills when compared with the Acts remaining
on the statute book, and he had declared it to be his
opinion that the digest of the Criminal Law Commissioners
ought to have been waited for. He (Lord Brougham)
entirely agreed with his Noble Friend in the praises
which he had bestowed on these gentlemen for their
exertions ; and, bowing to their authority, as he did, lie
thought it fair to state what their opinion was on the
points in question. They had anticipated the objections now
made by his Noble Friend, and bad foreseen the inevitable
results which must arise from not making all the improve-
ments of the criminal code to be included under one Act of
Legislation. In an able letter, written by his Noble Friend,
they said that, although undoubtedly considerable ameliora-
tions were sure to take place from the introduction of Bills
such as were now before the House, yet they were certain
that partial legislation would draw with it considerable in-
convenience in practice. Nothing short of a thorough Re-
form would be effectual. Partial changes might remove
some evils, but great inconvenience must arise from com-
bining an amendment of crimes with a new interpretation
of the same system. Therefore, they felt that to proceed
from time to time in remedying the evils of the criminal
code was far inferior in utility to a total reform. Such was
the opinion of the Criminal Law Commissioners, which, as
the House would perceive, was anticipatory of the incon-
veniences just now adverted to. He had to state to their
Lordships that, early in November, they would send in their
digest of the whole law ; and, certainly, if it had been waited
for, much of the inconvenience now complained of would