The Sun.
London, England, 1856-04-04 00:00:00

had omitted one important consideration, whtrh was that a and, indeed, to take the whole subject in its broadest sense
person sentenced before the act named was sentenced for into consideration, and for that purpoe he would suggest
ton years' transportation, but after the act p:ssed the ricn- an addifioe to the amendment. With regard to the clues-
tence was four years' penal servitude. If a ticket of leave tton of how far transportation was now carried out, it
was givim to the person sentenced to penal servitude, mast be remembered that there was but etre place to which
when a third of his term of punishment had expired; it convicts could be sent, and that was Western Australia,
would be introducing that very injostice of which the hen. and all parsons who were transported would be sent there,
gentleman bad so much complained. In introducing, the consideration being had to the nature of the labour which
bill in the House of Lords the Lord Chancellor explained was required in that colony. In reality there had not been
the change which it contemplated, and stated that it pro- a sufficient number of convicts who were of that kind that
posed. instead of the shorter periods of transpertation,; to were required in that colony, and consequently not. so many
i substitute certain periods of penal servitude in this coon- had been sent as were required. It must be borne in mind,
try, varying from four to ten years. The intention of the however, that the colony was not capable of receiving a
Government-was that that part of the period, of transper. very great number of convicts ; and it must ales be borne
tation which used to be passed in this country should still in miud that convicts could only be sent so long as the co•
be passed in penal servitude. Parliament intended, with louists were willing to receive them. At present the sys-
regard to sentences of transportation, that tickets of leave tem was working extremely well, and the convicts in the
should bo given in this country, inste id of in the colo- great majority of instances had conducted themselves pro-
nies, and with regard to sentences of penal servitude, perly. There was no great bod, of substantial settlers in
that tickets of leave should only be given in special that colony, in consequence of the great change which bad
cases. With that view the act was passed, Parliament, taken place in the prospects of the other portion of Anstra-
nO doubt, feeling that they would not be justified in lid. Tue whole of this subject would be referred to the coin-
!establishing a general system of tickets of leave and inittee, and that committee would prosecute its inquiry into
general licen.tes in the cases of penal servitude. With every branch of the system which was under consideration.
respect to the difficulty of convicts obtaining labour, Mr. ADDERLEY hoped that the practice of expatriat-
that had not arisen from the ticket-of-leave system, but ing felons would never be revived, and commentedat some
from the substituting punishment in this country, instead length upon the various plans- that had been adopted for
of punishment by transportation to the colonies. No one the management of convicts at home, especially as regarded
could deny that transportation had very great advantages the attempts to establish reformatory schools or otherwise
to the country, and even to the convicts themselves. By iestruct and reclaim the inmates of our criminal prisons.
means of transportation the country got rid of a large per-
After a few words from Mr. BNINEFS',
tion of the criminal population, with little or no chance of Mr. NE WDEGATE remarked upon the advantages that
its returning, while the convicts, once in the colony, were might be obtained by utilising the labour of convicts in
employed in honest labour, and in the course of time be- the colonies, and upon the better chances of reforming the
came merged in the general mass of colonial society. it criminal when transferred to a new country, and removed
was impossible to deny, however, that some of the colonies from his old haunts and associates.
had great and just complaint of the infusion of a crimina Sir S. NORTHCOTE suggested that among other topics
population iu their growing society. It was owing to the re- the treatment to be adopted owards prisoners upon their
monstrances of the colonists on that point that the Govern- discharge should form a subject of inquiry by the select
men tof this country felt themselves called on to sacrifice the committee. .
advantages which tbiscountry deriied from transportation, Mr. J. FITZGERALD urged the revival of tramp,.
and consult the 'wishes of the colonists. Many of the lioldikra Lion, feeling emir that itams tlAio most eligible*
Li secondary pun theist. --T-- -of tickets of leave, it was asserted, finding meat difficuly in
obtaining employment in this country, were driven back Mr. SCOTT brie y replied; and having consented to
.
to their old associates as the only chance they had of get- modify the terms of his motion,
ting a living. Looking to the operation of the act of 1853, Sir G. GREY withdrew his amendment, and the reso-
on that most important point he had no wish to propose lotion, in its zremodelled shape, was agreed to.
any ameudment to the motion that would preclude the SPECINLVY AND SIMPLE CONTRACT DEBTS.
committee from giving that point their consideration. He, Mr. MALINS obtained leave to bring in a bill to
however, dissented from the suggestion which hid been abolish all distinctions between specialty and contract
made for collecting and employing those convicts in some debts. According to the law as it now stands, specialty
one place. He believed that that would be a most inju- creditors had a preference over simple contract creditors,
rious, if not an impracticable, plan, and that the whole' when the payment was to be made "from real property.
district would remonstrate against any concentration of 'When the property was insufficient, the specialty creditors
ticket-of-leave labour. It would be injurious to the men swept.all away, leaving nothing for the simple contract
themselves to allow them to associate together. The great creditors.

(abject ought to be to separate them ari'much as possible,
giving them every facility to obtain employment. It
would be in the power of the committee to inquire into
that point if they thought fit, but he had stated the objec-
tions he felt with regard to it. Having noticed the main
points in the speech of the hon. member, he hoped be
would be sat stied with the object which he h el in view in
his amendment, but that he would limit his inquiry to the
penal system established by the act of 1853 He might
say that he thought it highly desirable that ticket-of-leave
men should not be allowed to return to the place where
they had been convicted. The general practice had been
to allow ticket-of-leave holders to go where they pleased ;
but in special cases it was desirable, he thought, to limit
their tickets, and to exclude them from the particular
county in which they were tried. Ho would not say more,
as it would be in his power, if the committee were ap; ointed
to enter fully into details before it. had explained
the object of his amendment, and he hoped the hon. gen- '
Haman would bo satisfied with it, and not think it neces-
sary to divide the house on the subject. The right hon.
baronet concluded by moving a select committee to inquire
into the operation of the act 16th and 17th Viet., c. 99,
intituled "An Act .o substitute in cart tin Cases other
PunishmoOtS in lieu of Transportation."
Sir J. PAKINGTON said this was a subject of the
highest importance at all times, and particularly at the
present time, and he therefore thought the house was in-
debted to the hon. member for. Berwickshire for bringing
it forward. He was disposed to agree with the right hon.
b ironet that the terms of the motion were rather vague
and indefinite. On the other hand, he was inclined to
think that the amendment of the right hon. gentleman was
too restricted in its terms, and that the committee ought
by all means to consider the question of the policy or im-
policy of reviving transportation. (Hear.) Ho did not
recollect from what had fallen from the right hon. gentle.
man, whether he held that the committee would be at
liberty to investigate, not only the operation of the law,
but the terms of the law itself. For his own part, he (Sir
J. Pakington) was not at all satisfied with it as it now
stood ; and if Parliament came to the conclusion"—as it
very likely would—that it was undesirable to revive
transportation, it might then be necessary that the terms
of the act of 1353 shoild be reconsidered. Perhaps the
right honourable gentleman was hardly aware of the ex-
treme haste and precipitation with which that act was
passed. The session of 1812-3 Will one of an unusually
protracted Wad laborious character; and it was not till the
month of August, when very few members were left in
town, that the act was introduced. It was passed, in fact,
by an exhausted house and almost without eiscussion. He
should .be glad to know, first, whethur..the right-hon:
baroret considered that the committee would really be at
liberty to consider the terms of the act. (Sir G GREY.—
" Hoar.") He wished also to ask upon what principle set.-
tencam of transportation continued to be imposed? It would
bo in the r:collection of the house that it was the Govern-
ment of Lord Darby which had decided that transporta-
ti in, excedt to a limited extent, should cease. He did not

CRIMINAL APPROPRIATION OF TRUST
PROPERTY.
The ATTORNEY-GE YERAL moved for leave to bring
in a bill to amend the law relating to criminal appropria-
tion of trust property held by persons as trustees or bailees.
The hoc. and learned gentleman said that the necessity for
this bill arose from the insufficient protection which the
law at present afforded against misappropriation of property
by persons entrusted with it in the character of trustees or
bailees. Under the common law, a person who obtained
lawful po4ession of property could not be made criminally
responsible for its fraudulent appropriation. For in-
stance, if 3 carrier, who was entrusted with goods to carry,
stole themi he could not be made miminally responsible ;
if goods were deposited with an artisan or tradesman ft r
repair, &e., he also might have appropriated them to his
own use, without making himself criminally responsible.
The courts, however, haebeen astute enough to apply, to
some extent, a remedy fur this defect in the law, by bold-
ing +hat if a carrier broke open the parcel entrusted to him
and appropriated any portion of the contents to his own
use, he was guilty of larceny. So, if a tradesman removed
the watch from the watch-case, and sold the case, he also
was held to be guilty of larceny. Such was the state of the
common law uutilcertain excep:ious bad b en iut o need by
the Legislature. If servants keep the property of &nail mas-
ters, the statute law now declared them to be guilty of em-
bezzlement; and bankers, agents, and factors were also
made criminally responsible if they misappropriated prp-
perty deposited with them ; hut to this day a trustee who
misappropriated trust property was only civilly respons-
ible, and the Insolvent or Bankruptcy Courts would clear
him from the consequences. He proposed to do away
with that anomaly, and to put all persons entrusted with
funds for trust purposes on the .same footing as bankers
in respect to securities deposited with them. He
also proposed to do away with the technical rule of law by
which, if a person acquired property for a special purpose,
and afterwards misappropriated it, he was not held guilty
of larceny, as it appeared to him (the Attorney-General)
that it did not matter whether a person had the felonious
intention at the time he got possession of the property or
only at the time of misappropriating it. (Hear.)
Mr. WALPOLE wished to know whether, as a trustee
was to be made criminally respont.ible, he would be relieved
from his civil responsibility ?
The ATTORNEY-GENERAL said that a trustee would
still be liable in the civil courts.
Mr. MALINS Lighly approved of the bill, as he had con-
tinually seen the necessity of such a measure in the course
of his professional practice.
Mr. BOWYER also agreed in the general provisions of
the bill, but it would require to be tleslt with with great
care and attention, lest it should inflict great hardship upon
trustees, who performed a most thankless office, and who
generally committed breaches of trust not with any crimi-
nal intention; but for oblige the parties beneficially inte-
rested. If they were to add to the liability of ti esteem the
risk of a criminal prosecution it would make their position
a great deal more dangerous. That fear would make trus-
tees very much alarmed. lie merely mentioned this as
a caution to the house in entertaining the measure in
question.
The ATTORNEY-SENERAL begged to assure the

claim any merit for Lord Derby's Government on that
account. All the leading public men at that time were
so thoroughly convinced that transportation must be
put an end to, that, whoever had been in office, he
was convinced that the change must have taken place.
The right hon. baronet had, however, underrated the
reasons which existed at that time for the alte-
ration. He had put it solely on the objection of the
colonists of Van Dierneu's Land to receive any more con-
victs. No doubt the feelings of the c )1 mists were such as
could not with prudence be neglected ; but there was
another reason against the continuance of transportation
of such weight that it meet have prevailed, even if the
colony had petitioned the G vernment to send them more
convicts. Ho alluded to the discoveries of gold in Australia.
It would never have done to continue sending out persons
as a punishment to a part of the globe, which so many wore
attracted to by the hope of gain. ( Hear.) If Lord Derby's
Government hail continued in office, it would have become
his (Sir J. Pekington's) duty to have devised some substi-
tute for transportation. In 1852 he accordingly drew up
a memorandum of the system which he thought ought to
be adopted, one which expressed his own individual views.
In that document he stated that lie did not propose to
put an end to the punishment of transportation for the
greater crimes, but that the system of sending out several
thousand convicts every year must be given up. He pro-
posed, therefore, that long imprisonm ,nts should be Bah-
stituted for sentences of transportation for 7 or 10 years,
but that persons who would have been transported for 10
years and upwards should still continue to be transported,
and should be sent to Western Australia. He (sir J.
Pakiugton) should be glad to know how far her Majesty's
Government concurred in that view. They had substituted
imprisonment for the shorter periods of transportation, and
at the same time they ret 'filed transportation to some ex-
tent. So far he concurred with them ; but he confessed he
still retained the opinion that transportation should be the
punishment reserved for offences next in gravity below
thos ) for which the extreme penalty of death was awarded.
In 1853 he put a question on that subject to the noble lord
who was then at the head of the Howe-office, and he was
told that no such principle would be recognise), hut that
sentences of transportation should continue to be inflicted at
the discreCon of the courts and of the Home-office. To take,
for example, the case of Strahen and Pail, who had been
sentence t to It years' transportation— no one could tell
whether those persons would be sent to Western Australia
or to Gibraltar or Bermuda, or whether they would be de-
tained at home in penal servitude. The right hon. baronet
said with great truth that sentences should be obvious and
intelligible ; and, without committing himself to the doc-
trine that the length of the penal servitude should be equal
to the time for which the pers. would have been trans-
ported, he (Sir J. Pakington) did think that the period of
penal servitude had been made too short. There was no
one that had had any experience in the administration of
justice but must often have witnessed painful scenes when
sentences of transportation were passed, and he had no
hesitation in saying that -a sentence of expatriation for 7
years was one that would have a much more powerful in-
fluence not only upon the criminal himself, but upon his
relations and friends —would in short be a much more de-
terring punishment—(hear, hear)—than a sentence of
penal servitude for four years. There could hardly be a
question that a sentence of imprisonment for four years to a
young man —and nearly all those who used to be sen-
tenced to 7 years' transportation were young—was not au
equivalent for the old sentence, especially if even that short
term of imprisonnaont might be still further reduced by a
ticket-of-leave. Bus as they advanced higher the dispro-
portion between the old and the new scale of punishment
became still more glaring. For 15 years' transportation
there had been substituted not less than six years' servi-
tude nor more than eight. For a still graver class of crimes
for which a sentence of 20 years' transportation was occa-
sionally inflicted, ten years' servitude was now awarded ;
and there was no medium between that and a sentence of
imprisonment for life. That, he certainly thought, was
an undesirable state of things. (Hear, hear.) With re-
gard to tickets-of-leave, that was a system which Lord
Derby's Government had certainly never contemplated,
and of which the noble lord opposite was entitled to the
whole credit or otherwise. When it was first introduced
it.was regarded with great disapprobation and great ap-
prehensiou ; and the question hail arisen that night whe-
ther those feelings had been justified by the circum-
stances of the case. For his own part he did not knew
whether the facts that had been stated were sufficient on
which to express an opinion. Colonel Jobb had informed
him that in the two years during which the system had
been in operation about 4,000 tickets of leave had been
granted.
Sir G. GREY here handed to the right hon. gentleman
a manuscript report which had been made to the Governs
went only a few dm s before.
Sir
numberj
d not entirelyb e
re.
Colonel Jebb told him that only 5i per cent had been for-
feited by the misconduct of those to whom they had been
of
fAtiCierkleTetGs ToOf NI a
afvoeu found
afrobmeent.hsalsr2e,psourtd that the
granted. He (Sir J. Pakington) confessed he thought that
that was not at all a discouraging result, but it should be re-
membered that the system had as yet only operated upon
persons who had been sentenced to transportation under
the old system. (Hear.) If criminals of the gravest class
were to be retained in this country, it would become a seri.
ld bt
he e dischargedslioll
imprisonment, leaving to
o free,us questionor
whether, wh t hwhener tpierlyii
rhoaotfue
tained for a time under the check which the ticket of leave
undoubtedly imposed. He was disposed to believe that it
would be better to continue the ticket-of-leave system, but
he would extend the
the prisoner the encouragement of knowing that if he con-
ducted himself well he would not be detained for the whole
term for which he was sentenced.
Mr. LABOUCEIBRE thought there could be no doubt
at:ail that the committee would have power to consider any
silioadroont to the existieg law which might be suizeiteili

house that he was most sensibly alive to the danger which
had been pointed out by the hoe. and learned member,
but he thought that danger,had been avoided by the word-
ing of the bill.
Leave was then given to bring in the bill.
JOINT STOCK BANK DIRECTORS' ELECTION
BILI,.
Sir J. SHELLEY moved for leave to bring in a bill to
amend the law relating to the, election of directors of joint
stock banks in England. The act which related to this
subject was passed in 1844, and by the 4Th section of that
act it was provided that retiring directors should not he
re-elected for a period of 12 calendar mouths. The olject,
of the present bill was to enable shareholders if they
thought fit, to re-elect at once directors that might be re-
tiring. The bill would not interfere with the election of
sew directors—with infusing new blood into the direction.
It was evident that by the act as at present constituted, as
soon as a director was sufficiently experienced in his busi-
ness, although he might be the best man in the direction,
he was incap witateil from further serving the shareholders.
He might mention that five of the principal joint stack
banks at ;resent existing were established hefiire this act
came into force, and were therefore not subject to its pro-
visione. The present act applied to three other banks,
and if the principle were good for any, it surely would be
good for all. His object was to leave the whole direction
in the hands of the shareholders themselves, uyou the
principle of self-government which now so extensively pre-
vailed. The Lit, was a very short one and did not affect
anything but the ineligibility of directors to re-election
until after a period of 12 calendar months.
The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER said ho
had 110 otjee• ion to the introduction of the bill. He had
eoesideranla doubts as to the policy of altering the provi-
s one the ixesent act, which had been very carefully con-
sidered by Sir. R. Peel. The amine principle was followed
with respect to the election of the Governors of the Bank
of Enzland. As at present advised. ho thought there was
not :u ficiest ground for altering the existing law, but any
objections which ho had to make he would reserve to a
fauna occasion.
Mr. JOHN MACGREGOR, lu seconding the motion,
said that Sir R. Peel had expressed to loin his doubts
whether it would nut be necessary to snake some change
in the law. The very best and most responsible man had
hem often kept out of the direction in a state of suspense
for fear years. He was very glad that the hon. Itarouet
had brought forward this Lill.
Leave was then given to introduce the bill.
NATIONAL EDUCATION IN IRELAND.
Mr. MACARTNEY moved for certain papers connected
with the Board of National Education iu Ireland.
Mr. WILSON said there was no objection to lay the
documents on the table, provided they were complete,
which they were not.
Lord J. MANNERS thought the estimates as to the
National Board should be postponed until the report of the
commissioners was before the house.
After some further discussion, in which Mr. BLACKBURN
and Mr. WALroLR took part,
The motion, limited to the production of the "minutes,"
was agreed to.