The Sun.
London, England, 1832-03-28 00:00:00

IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT.

HOUSE OF COMMONS, MARCH 27.
Mr. Alderman WOOD presented a petition from two
persons resident in Gracechurch-street, praying that their
premises might be included in the London Bridge Ap-
proaches Bill. The Hon. Alderman a tid the petitioners
had consented to part with their premises. He also pre-
sented a petition from the Directors of the St. Katherine's
Dock Company, praying for leave to bring in a Bill. The
latter was referred to the Committee.
Mr. Alderman WOOD went into a Committee upon
Smith's Divorce Bill, Lord Morpeth in the Chair.
Mr. Pottocx appeared at the bar as Counsel for the
Petitioner, and examined witnesses in support of the Bill,
alter which the House resumed and Lord Morpeth brought

up the report.
On the motion of Lord STANLEY, the Manchester
provem,nt was reiti a thisd time and passed.
Mr HUNT presented a petition from the four men
(Broadhurst, Curran, Ashmore, and Gilchrist), confined in
Lancaster Castle, under sentence of a year's init.risonm.•nt,

for being present at an illeg 41 meeting at Manchester, on
a Sunday. They complained that they were ill-treated in
gaol, and that they were refused even the gaol allowance,
which was a kind of thin gruel called skillet, and potatoes.
He begged to call the attention of the House more eve-
cially to this petition, because it might, perhap., be very
shortly the turn of a different description of reformers, these
men being radical reformers, to be similarly situated. Hay.
ing been condemned to a year's imprisonment, they were
supplied at first with the gaol allowance, but in conse-
quence of their being unable to do the work assigned to
them, the gaoler told them that they must provide them-
selves with food and firing. This was understood to be
by the orders of the visiting Justice•. The only wink
those poor men could periorm was milk-weaving, and
therefore it was impossible fur them to do such work as
the gaoler put them to. The) also complain that a Bill
was now before the House, which in the event of their
dying in gaol would give the gaoler the power of disposing
of their bodies to the surgeons. They were very poor
men ; their families were obliged to be supported by the
parish, and they were apprehensive that they would die in
prison. They also complained that all their letters were
broken I:pen by the gaoler; and of that he (Mr. Hunt) had
also to complain that the gaoler had committed a breach of
privilege; he had occasion to write to those men, and his
letters had been opened before the men got them. He
apprehended that the law did not give the gaoler permis-
sion to break open letters addressed to persons confined
for misdemranonre, whatever it might do so far as re-
garded felons—the more e.pecially when the letters came
from a Member of the Commons House of Parliament.
When he was in prison in Ilebester gaol for a sim►lar
offence, the question was brought before the House, and
the Secretary of State ordered the gaoler not to break open
any of his letters. He knew of no law that authorizeddhe
gaoler to break open the letters of prisoners. He
had communicated his intention of presenting this pe-
tition to the Under-S-eretary of State, and he should be
happy to hear what answer could be given to the petition.
The petitioners stated, that if the Anatomy Bill passed, they
expected their bodies would be given over for dissection
as they were totally without the means of keeping them-
selves alive, and expected they should not be able to survive
their confinement unless something was done fur them by
Parliament.

Mr. GREEN thought the main point touched upon by
the petitioners relative to the Anatomy Bill, had answered
itself. With respect to the conduct of the gaoler he (Mr.
Green) must take all blame from his shoulders, as
he had acted under his (Mr. Green's) orders, and
those of the other visiting Magistrates. With re-
spect to the opening of letters, he saw no reason
why a letter under cover of a frank of an Hon. Member

should not be subject to the same inspection as was gene-
rally adopted in prison. In what had been done, no vio-
lation of the law had taken place, the Act of the 4th of
Geo. IV. Chap. 60, fully authorising all that had peen done
Lord W. LENNOX said if all the statements contained
in the petition were as accurate as the one he was about
to allude to, the petition slid not deserve the attention of
the House. The Honourable Member alluded to that part

where the petitioners stated that in the event of their
deaths their bodies would be given up for dissection.
He (Lord William Lennox) opposed the Anatomy
Bill as much as the Hon. Member for Preston did, but
be must declare, bad as it was, there was a clause which
enabled an individual, by expressing his wishes, to save
himself from the hands of the dissector.

Mr. WARBURTON thought that the prisoners had
been harshly dealt with and concurred entirely with
the prayer of the petition. The great caarge
brought against the prisoners was, that they had
attended a political meeting on a Sunday ; he ad-
mitted that that was improper, but he could not see any
ground for treating them as they had been dealt with.
He could not for his lite conceive under what law the pe-
titioners had been imprisoned.
Mr. LAMB was sorry that he had not been present
when the petition was presented. He could not agree
with many of the statements i❑ the petition, and with re-
gard to the opening of letters, be did not know whether
the Hon. Member for Preston expected that more courtesy
would be shown to the franks of Honourable Members
than the letters of any other individual; if he did he must beg
to differ with him completely. He was sure that the
Hon. Members about him would he very sorry to be an-
swerable for everything that went under cover of their
franks.—(Laughter.) With respect to what had been
stated by the lion. Member for Bridport be (Mr. Lamb)
certainly did not expect to hear him advocate a petition
which stated so much against the Bill which he had in-
troduced into that House. The Hon. Member here
seated that the offence of these men was the attending
a political meeting on a Sunday ; that was not so ; the
offence was attending an unlawful reefing. He had
no hesitation in saying there was no law in existence
which made it a substantive offence to hold meetings on
Sundays ; but at least it was treating that day very irre-
verently, and placed in rather a suspicious light the pro-
ceedings which took place.
Mr. HUME said that the Right Hon. Gentleman who
had just addressed the House, had not stated in what the
unlawfulness of the me ting consisted. The circumstan-
ces, as he understood them, under which the meeting
was called, were these :—That certain individuals were
under sentence of death at Bristol, for the part they had
taken in the late riots, and these parties at Manchester
being desirous of saving their lives called a meeting for the
purpose of addressing his Majesty in their behalf.
Now he was anxious to know where was the unlawful-
ness of such a meeting, called by public notice, particu-
larly as the address was agreed to, and forwarded
in due form through the Secretary of State to
his Majesty ? Where were the acts of violence—
where the impropriety ?—there might be indiscreet
speeches, but in what assembly in the world were they
nut to be met with? Even in that House—(Hear and
laughter)—had they not now and then listened to indiscreet
speeches, and should the House not make an allowance
for those who are not under such controul? There ought
then to be some strong and special grounds in order to
make it an unlawful meeting.—(Hear, hear.) It was,
Indeed, highly indecorous to meet on the Sunday, for
the purpose they had in view, but there was a
difference between disapproving of that, and condemning
the parties for such a misdemeanor to twelve months' im-
prisonment.
Mr. WEYLAND considered that the Judge and the
Jury had alone to determine the question of the legality or
illegality of the meeting, and it was not necessary now to
interfere with their solemn decision.
Lord STANLEY said, if he had not read the petition,
he should have been disposed to think, from the speech of
the Hon. Member for Preston, that the purport of the
petition was very different from what be found it to be.
The petitioners did not complain of the conduct of the
gaoler.
Mr. HUNT—They do.
Lord STANLEY—The question was not whether the
directions of the Magistrates were complied with, the peti-
tioners only called upon the House not to pats the Anatomy

Wi at was same for the goose was sauce for the
gmder, and if this Reform Bill were not passe'•l, wou'd
Hon. Members on the Treasury Bench succumb ? Would

they give up Reform ? If they would, he hhould not, and
they might be imprisoned for political off, nces. lie

himself had heard in that House words much more

violent, perhaps more vulgar than those for which three

- .
men had. been found guilty of a misdemeanor. During
the time of the Susp,n.ion Art, and during the worst

flays of Lord Sid mouth's Aduoiniitration, no case parallel to
the present had occurred. As to the gaol, r, whom so

high a char.icter had teen given by the N,,tple Lord, he
wig a vulgar, insolent. unfeeling wretch. He wall al a less

to know how the Noble Lord coul.l bestow on him such a
character. Ho was convinced it 14 as because he did not know

him. If like him (Mr. Hunt) Hon. Meinbas had been
imprisoned for political offence., their ilainions would have

been widely different.
Lord STANLEY explained.
Mr. 110111 N !.4)N said there appeared to be a iviestiott
o' every considerable importaiee into sc., in trig cane,
Vier persons condemned for iodic:cal offe ,cts at.d rot to
impri4onment and hard 1 iiiour, could he etini,t lied to labour

by the regulation of a county at,a!istta,e. lie v,-ished to
know what Acts of Parliament regulated this.
Sir F. BURDETT said, the greatest jealousy should he
exercised over the charactei and conduct of jailors whoever
the slightest foundation tor suspicion of unworthy conduct
existed, and most scrutingly it ought to be ing,itred into.
The petitioners hail been imprisoned for a politokal offence,
and without entering into the merits of the ease, to, would
may that the prisoners were under the strict protection of
the law, and nothing should he done, such as the withdrawal
ott he gaol allowance, but what the sentence or the law
fully sanctioned. As to the opening of karts, he considered
it a great grievance, which nothing but a very siring special
justification could exempt from being considered cruel and
unconstitutional in the highest degree. Tile slihtest of all
cffences were political ones, committed under cif,
cumstances of public excitement, and they ought to it
looked on comp,ssitonately, in evrty country,w here here was
the slightest fr, edoin of opinion.—P.,titio,n to be tainted.
Mr. EWART rose, according to his notice, to move

for leave to bring in a Bill to abolish the punishment of
death for liorse•stealing, sheep•stealing, ai.d stealing in a
dwelling-house, no person therein being put in bodily fear.
In gi.ing notice of this motion the Learned Member had
done it as an individual Member of Parliament, and on
his own personal responsibility. The general feeling with
which lie ventured to introduce this suk,,ect was for the pur-
pose of bringing forward a m•asure to introduce a inure
certain punishment for certain offences. An undue punish-
ment must be an uncertain punishment, and whenever a
punishment was irreparable, the evil consequences might be
of the most distressing kind. Many of the crimes which
were visited by capital punishment in this country were not,
visited with the s ane degree of punishment in Fiance or on
the con inent. Thesentence of death was pas ed on prig
.ners
for crimes which were never thought of being punished by
death in any country except this. It might br truly said,
that this punishment did not fall on all sentenced to cuff r
it, and that it was only in a solitary instance,

where the severity of the punishment was carried into
effect, and it was said that this had a salutary effect.
He doubted the accuracy of the expression. If 99
persons were allowed to escape and one pei son was executed
tor the same offence, he could not but doubt the jus.

tics of that law.—(Hear.) He knew, and indeed, many
of his own friends had been placed in the situation, that
many persons had been detetred from prosecuting, simply
from the circumstance of its being possible that it they had
prosecuted, and the individual had been found guilty,
by possibility he might have been executed for the offence.
When the Committee of Enquiry was sitting on tkis sub•
ject, one witness stated before the Committee that his
land had been laid entirely waste, and yet he had nut
prosecuted and would net prosecute, from a tear that it the
parties had been found guilty, they would have been exe-
cuted. In the Bill which he purposed to bring before
the House, he meant to propose for the capital punishment
of the offences to which he allu►lyd, the secondary
punishment in the Act introduced by the Right
Honourable Baronet opposite—namely, transportation
from seven to fourteen, or twenty-one years, or for life, or
to a given number of years hard labour ; this, however,
to be ►fecided upon Inure patticlarly from the sugges-
tions of Honourable Members when the proper time
came. The Honourable Member then entered into
a contrast of the number of sentences passed in given
years in France and in England, and of the degree of cer-
tainty with which in the respective countries those sen-
tences were to be expected to be carried into effect. In
England, for instance, in the year 1830, about 1,400 indi-
viduals had been sentenced to death, 46 only of whom had
been executed; in France 92 had been sentenced to death,
of whom about one-half had suffered. In France in
1825, 130 had been sentenced to death-110 executed.
In England since then 1,000 had been sentenced to
death in the same year, of whom only about 50 bad
been executed. From these and other instances the Hon.
Gentleman considered the criminal law to be in an exceed-
ing uncertain state in this country—considered it in a
state urgently calling for a revision and improvement, and
concluded by expressing his hope that his motion would be
entertained.

Mr. STRICKLAND said, the House was much in-
debted to the Hun. and Learned Member for the ability
with which he had brought this 'object forward. He
(Mr. S.) had bad frequent opportunities of rtflecting upon
the subject, and he coincided with the French people
that the English Criminal Code was of a most sanguinary
character. What code could be worse than that by which
1,400 persons were capitally convicted, and of that number
but six convictions were carried into eff ct? He had no doubt
that crime was encouraged by such a system. The cri-
minal code had undergone very recent altetattons, but he
was sorry to say that he could not call many of them
improvements. In many of the minor offences, the punish-
ment of whipping had been carried to a great, and even to
a brutal extremity—rather, as it would seem, to the
effect of brutalizing, than of correcting offenders. The
whole state of the criminal law, although some tech-
nicalities and barbarisms had been struck out, was still
nut what it ought to be. Speeches vett., perm'tted to
be made against a prisoner, while none were allowed to
he made for him ; a whole host of witnessea were brought
forward against him at the public exjeose, but none
were brought forward for him at the public expense,
so that in many cases, particularly those of a circumstan-
tial nature, a man from his extreme poverty would be un-
able to prove his innocence.
Mr. LAMB said that he would most readily assent to the
introduction of the Bill. He agreed that the question
was deserving the attention of the House, and he awatded
his tribute of praise to the Hon. and Learned Member for
bringing it forward. One Hon. Member bad, however,
spoken of the criminal code as of a sanguinary character.
That Hon. Member, did not seem sufficiently to allow that
the attention of former Ministers had been called to
this subject, and that they had endeavoured to make the law
as little sanguinary as possible. Torte were not at present
any great number of offences made capital, hut be agre. d that
those selected for the proposed Bill were tffences for
the punishment of which a great difference of opinion ex-
tsted. He begged it to be understood that while be agreed
to the Billl being brought in, he would not pledge
himself to consent to take away capital punishment
orn all the offences enumerated in the motion.—
( Hear.) As to horse-stealing, be was not prep tred to
44y that the punishment of death should be taken away
altogether.—Nor was it as to sheep-stealing, be-
cause they were property which were so Lttle
protected. As to stealing in a dwelling house, where no per-
son was put in bodily fear, and where the property stolen
bras to the value of 5/. it: should be observed that it was the
only offence in the statute book to which a qualification of
value was attached, there were some cases, such as servants
robbing masters, which were of great enormity, and the
House should be cautious before they classed those offences
with common larcenies. He hoped that the House would
agree to the Bill being brought in, and that there might be
an ample opportunity of discussing it.
Sir ROBERT PEEL was of opinion that the House
ought to entertain this question with mush wore compre-
hensieC views than those talus --by either the mover or

it-. seconder of the 'Lotion. It involved
considerations of the deepest importance to the well-being
(If 3,,ciel--; at larze. He did trot believe that the Honour.
Niombet. (Mr. Etrai-t) had very well conceived this
subject in tvia.hicl to take if capital punishment from
horse and &Inn-stealing, and leaving cattle-sterling still
subject to capital punishment.
Mr. F WART expressed tll4 intention of .cAtending Lie
moth n to cattle steallne..

it ROBERT PEEL olo.r.ed that that cireunistanca
showed how eYtremelvteutioos Hon. 31embers should he
in Ice-Wing on this .ohject. There were many case: of horse
and cattle-stye:ling and h.,d,e rolibery, whicl;w.?re att,nded
with srach circumstances of enorrniiy, as would jus-
lify the infliction of capital pnivishinent.—CH-ar, bear.)
Hou,e ought to pane before they agreed ti t'-e
proposed Bill, for there were other important topics
which ought to be well con,idered. They should consoler
the st:ite of secondary punishments, and of cases where
persons of extreme nr,iiiga,:y but of good educatiem com-
mitted offences. He rhul no: deny that it wss .ime to con-
sider this subject but their steps should be taken with great
caution and consideration, for it would be unwise to excite
the prejudices of the public sgainst them in passing a mea-
sure which :night be supposed to weaken the protection of
praxerty.

Dr. LUSIIINGTON agree:i in thz, ne:c.sity of givinu
tais subject a most calm and temperate consideration.
Lord ALTHORP would not oprn the motion of the
:lan. Member tor Liverpool; but he must say, that untii
they had secured a better system of secondary punishments,
he thought the amendments proposed to ha introduc,d
into our Criminal Code could not safely be carried into
effect.

After ti fern worth from Mr. 11013INSD'N, Mr. TREVOR,
Ma. Hut and Mr. C, PELHAM, 4eave wai given to bring
in the Bill.