The Sun.
London, England, 1857-06-05 00:00:00

PUBLIC BATHING.

The Marquis of WESTNIINS rEtt brought in a bill
for the be ter management of public bathing plicei. The
noble I ,rd said he had been at Ramsgate and Margate
last season, and there witnessed scenes of indecency
that loudly called for improvement.

The bill was read a first time.
SALE OF POISONS.

Earl GRANVILLE moved that the house go into
committee on this bill, which was one intended to
put a stop to the great facility of purchasing poisons.
The fifth clause of the bill was the most important, as it
provided that the parties purchasing any poisonous in-
gredient should be accompanied by a witness
known to the sel!er, or else to provided with
a certificate of a respectable medical prac-
titioner or clergyman is the neighbourhood. The
6th clause enacted that certain poisons should be kept
under lock and key, and that when sold they should
be placed in bottles of a certain shape, or
coloured pap r. The vendor was also required
to keep a register of the quantity of poison sold,
and al'o an accurate entry of the name and address of
the purchaser. The oill, he felt convinced, would be one
of great good, and *would afford that protection which
was at present so loudly called for.
Lord CAMPBELL said he felt great pleasure in sup-
porting the present bill. It was one which was loudly
called for, and he doubted not that great good would
follow the passing of such a measure.
The Earl of HARD WICKE said, if the present bill
passed, one half of the chemists' shops would be.closed
during the next six months. Many poisons were used in
medicines, and if any person was supplied with
a bottle containing a certain mixture a part of which
was poison he would refuse to take it. Toe bill en•
acted that poisonous compounds were to be made up
in a certain manner, but he thought all legislative en•
actments would be found useless to meet the evil in
question. He should therefore oppose the bill.
Lord TALBOT DE MA LAHIDE said many of the
enactments Gf the bill had been borrowed from, Ire-
land, and such being the case, he hoped an effort
would be mad.-; t 3 as,imilate the law with respect to
the sale of poisons in the three countries.
Lord.REDESDALE sugg,,ested:that the bi►l should
be referred to a select committee before their lordships
proceeded further with it.
Earl GRANVILLE said be had not the slightest ob-
jection to the course proposed by the noble lord oppo-

sits.
After a short conversation the bill was ordered to be
referred to a select committee.
DIVORCE AND MATRIMONIAL CAUSES BILL
On the report of the amendments on this bill being
read,
Lard BROUGHAM rose to express the strong objec-
tion he felt to c-rtain omissions in the -bill to which
generally he entirely agreed. He had another objection,
and that was to what had been called the amendments
made in committee en the bill. He would venture to
say that never in the course of his legislative experience
was the word amendment more inapplicable than in this
instance, inasmuch as a defect was retained in the mea-
sure which he had hoped to see removed. What was
one of the great ofje.ctions to the action of crim. con.,
agreed to on all sides, or on nearly all sides 1 One of
the greatest, and in his opinion the greatest, objection to
that action was the grievous and crying injustice which
was done in that action to the unhappy wife of the party
who brought the action. An instance had occurred,
which he believed had been mentioned before, where an
action for crim. C:113. had been brought and compromised
by the payment of a trifing sum to the husband. All the
husband wanted was to get rid of hie wife, so he charged
her with adultery ; but when he got before the Ecclesi-
astical Court it was proved beyond all doubt the ; the
guilt of the wife was an impossibility, for the marriage
bad never been consummated, either by the husband or
(.aid the noble lord) or by any other man. (Laughter.)
To nearly, though not quite, the same degree, his objec-
tions would also apply to the proceedings authorised by
the bill for obtaining a divorce because the adulterer was
made no party.
The LORD CHANCELLOR said it was proposed to
make both the wife and the adulterer parties to the suit.
Lord BROUGHAM said in that case he must beg
his noble_ and learned friend's pardon. He would,
therefore, proceed at once to the very strong objections
he entertained against what had been call the amend-
ments to the bill. He found that a new species of
divorce altogether had been invented, but there was
no necessity for their lordships to patent it, for no
other state or country would ever desire to pirate
the invention. It was a divorce that was neither a
mensa et thoro nor a thicalo matrimonii, but yet re-
tained all the defects of both those systems. With
respect ,to one of the parties, it was a complete
divorce—the vinculum was dissolved, and the husband
might marry again. But with respect to the other
party—the wife, it was only half a divorce, and she
could not marry again. It left her not altogether free, nor
yet altogether fettered. She was doomed to the altera-
tive of prostitution or want, of sinning or starving, of
the streets or the workhouse. With all that respect
which it was natural for him to feel towards their lord-
ships, and with every desire to admire originality of con-
ception, he felt he should be guilty of some of the in-
consistencies which characterised that measure, and
some of the hypocrisy that it encouraged, were he to
express any admiration whatever for their lordships' very
original invention. Even setting all justice and morality
aside—and it was no light matter to do that in an assem-
bly presided over by his noble and learned friend the
Lord Chance:ler, and adorned by the heads of the church
—but even setting justice and morality aside, what was
to be gained by the Present measure ! Its professed ob-
ject was to prevent adultery, but did it show that it
would have any such tendency, or anything like it I Did
it not tend to encourage the offence it was directed
against ! It went upon the as:umpeion that in the ma-
joiity of cases the woman and not the man was to be
taken as the principal offender ; but a long experience of
such cases went to show most unquestionably that it was
nearly always the man and Lot the woman who was the
most guilty. Yet that bill encouraged the man to per-
severe iu his criminality by giving him an act of Parlia-
ment guarantee against the consequences of his crime,
by preventiog him from marrying the woman. Then
with regard to the woman, what did the bill do for her ?
The fear of loss of station in lite, and the deprivation
of the children, might be taken in must cases to be suffi-
cient incentives to virtue in a wife. But take one of
the worst cases where a woman had neither self-respect
nor natural affection, he believed the fear of loss of posi-
tion would at all events be a greater restriction than an
act of Parliament to prevent her marrying, not merely
the adulterer, but any other person whomsoever. The
strength of female attachments was well known, and it
was no uncommon thing in these cases for the adultery
to be committed by parties who could not possibly marry.
Indeed, in the very next divorce case that would come
before their lordships, the seducer was a married man,
and the woman a wife and a mother. The more he looked
into it, the more he felt convinced that a greater blot
upon the legislation of this kingdom had never been at-
tempted than by the so-called amendments that had been
, made in commi tee upon that new species of divorce.
Lord REDESDALE said the noble and learned lord
who last Rprize bad omitted to allude to the grounds
upon which the principal amendment was supported by
those who brought it forward. The Scripture said
" Whoso marrieth a woman that is divorced, comitsit-
teth adultery," and the b.ll in its original shape ap-
peared to be opposed to the law of God.
Lord BROUGHAM. said he was perfectly aware that
that suggesti6n had been given as the reason, and he had
recently read a work by an eminent barrister, in which
the language of Scripture was twisted about until it ap-
peared to bear that meaning. But those parties all ar-
gued as though St. Mark and St. Luke had not given a
very different version of the words. At all events, the
objection came a century and a half too late, for their
lordships had been granting divorces of that kind by a
different mode for the last 150 years.
Lord REDESDALE said St. Matthew gave the words
with great distinctness as coming from the lips of the
holy Saviour himself, and he (Lord Redesdele) could not
think that a practice of 150 years was sufficient to jus-
tify opposition to the Word of God.
The Earl of DONOUGHMORE said he had voted
for the amendment because he considered that
tmhatr
notcon-
was a contract, and that if one party b
tract, the other should have a remenail_tytigut hethe doffence
think it right that the party cone i
should profit by his crime.
The report a at then brought up
sanTdoagvvreleTdN to
E.
sus.
ADMINISTRATION OF
The report of the select committee on this subject bay-
ing been brought tins
Lord CAMPBELL moved a resolution, that select
committees should in future examine witnesses without
sworn, and that in com-
their havingr
private
billsp r ey
ir
ti ohne sl
witnesses should be examined
mittees on p
on oath, except only in cases where it might otherwise
be ordered by the house. His lordship said that the se-
lect committee had approved and recommended that
course.
The resolution was agreed to, after which their lord-
ships adjourned at 25 minutes after six o'clock.

HOUSE OF COMMONS.—(YEsTERDAY.)
The SPEAKER took the Chair at 4 o'clock.
PRIVATE BUSINESS.

The following bills were read a third time and pas.
sed :—The Atlantic Telegraph Company and the Austra-
lian Agricultural Company.
The following bills were further considered and
ordered to be read a third time :—Cardigan Markets
and Improvement ; Cork Gas ; Dartmouth and Torbay
ailway ; Great Yarmouth Britannia Pier ; Mayor'sourt of the City of London ; North Eastern and liar-
'tlepocl Dock and Railway Companies Amalgamation ;