The Sun.
London, England, 1845-05-17 00:00:00

(ft itening

LONDON, SATURDAY, MAY 17, 1845.

The House of Lords met at Five o'clock.
The LORD CHANCELLOR fixed the second reading of
the Charitable Trusts Bill for Thursday.
Lord BROUGHAM gave notice that on Monday he
would introduce several Bills for remedying defects in
our system for civil and criminal jurisprudence.
The High Constables Bill was read a second timc,
pro forma, preparatory to its being referred to a Select
Committee.

The Scottish Tolls Bill, prohibiting the licensing of
toll-houses in Scotland fur the sale of spirituous
liquors, was, on the motion of the Duke of RICHMOND,
read a second time, Lord CAMPBELL, the Duke of
MONTROSE, and the Earl of DALHOUSIE, expressing
their approbation of the measure, and the Earl of
ROSEBERY opposing it, as of too sweeping a character.
Several other Bills were forwarded a stage, and their
Lordships adjourned.

The House of Commons met at Four o'clock.
Mr. S. WORTLEY moved the addition of the following
clause to the Act of last session, constituting the Rail-
way Department of the Board of Trade :—" And be it
further enacted, that nothing herein contained shall be
deemed or construed to exempt the railway by this or
the said recited Acta authorised to be made from the
provisions of any general Act relating to railways, which
may hereafter pass during the present or any future
session of Parliament, and that the said resolution be a
standing order of this House."
Several Hon. Members complained that the motion
had been brought f award without sufficient notice, and
on the suggestion of Mr. GLADSTONE it was postponed
for a week.

On Sir R. PEEL moving that after the 2d of June Orders
of the Day should have precedence of motion,
Mr. 11. BERKELEY and Mr. WAKLEY complained of
the llcuse having been counted out on the preceding
evening.

On the motion that the House do resolve itself into
Committee of Supply on the Navy Estimates,
Mr. TRELAWNEY brought forward the case of Mr.
SECCOMBE, mortgagee of tha ship Velocity, seized for
smuggling, but of which smuggling Mr. SECCOMBE was
not cognisant.

Mr. CAREoh ELL admitted the hardship of the ease,
and regretted that no remedy could be given without
making a dangerous precedent.
Captain BERKELEY then called the attention of the
House to the present system of manning the Nary, and
designated the distinctions between sea complements,
warcomplements, and peace complements, as all nonsense,
—what the Navy required was a proper complement. It
was as great a fault to overman as it was to underman
a ship, and in all cases the crew should be proportioned
to the number of guns.
Sir G. COCKBURN assured the House that means had
been recently adopted for efficiently manning the ships
in service, and contended that seamen would enter the
navy in preference to the merchant service.
A long discussion ensued, in the course of which the
House Has addressed by Mr. SOMES, Mr. H. LAMBTON,
Captain Rocs, Captain PECHELL, Lord INGESTRE, Sir
C. NAPIER, Mr. WILLIAMS, Lord PAL3IERSTON, Sir
R. PEEL, the CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER, and
other Hon. Members, after which the House went into
Committee, and several votes for the public service were
agreed to without a division.

The House then resumed, and the Banking (Scotland)
Bill having passed through Committee, adjourned at
One o'Clock.

We call the serious attention of our reath rs to the
discussion which took place last evening on the state of
the navy, and believe every one of them who views the
question impartially will admit that the conduet of the
Admiralty is a disgrace to the nation. Naval officers of

all parties in the House complained, in the stronger

terms, of the inefficient state of our ships, both as re-
gards officers and men, and seemed to forebode some
lamentable results on the first encounter with any great
maritime Power. Captain PECHELL, it is true, apolo-
gised for the Admiralty, and threw the entire blame on
the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was a " millstone
around the necks of the Board." But what mi:erable
sailors this Board must be composed of, if they
undertake a task which involves the safety of the
country with such a drag as Mr. GOULDURN fastened
to them. The country raises annually an enormous
revenue ; the income-tax alone produces nearly six
millions sterling; there is a large surplus, yet the navy,
in reality, comes in for no share of the ample means
which the Minister has at his command. The
navy is starved ; many of the ships, few as they
are, may be said to be only half-manned ; and,
owing to the niggardly pay and bad treatment,
our best sailors, as soon as they are discharged, hire
themselves for better wages to a nation that Ay in six
months be at war with England. This is not report,
this is not a calumny on the Government or the Admi-
ralty, for it is admitted by the highest autho-
rity at the Board. Sir GEORGE COCKBURN said,

"it had been found impossible to get efficient
men when they were wanted. When men were dis-
charged from a man-of-war they either went into foreign
service or the merchant service, or got some sort of em-
ployment, for they required bread as well as other men ;
and then, in three or four years' time, if they should
happen to be wanted, they were not to be had." This
is the most disgraceful admission ever made
perhaps by a Lord of the Admiralty, and when the other
gallant Members of the House venture to remonstrate
and exclaim against such a glaring desertion of public
duty, they become marked men. The dumb Members
only are appointed to ships. As a proof, we refer to
Sir CHARLES NAPIER'S speech. But the conduct of the
First Lord of the Treasury, for he is the real de-
delinquent, is equally unjustifiable as regards
the army. The brave defenders of the country,
whether sailors or soldiers, are treated alike. They in-
cur every hardship, risk, and often sacrifice their lives
in her defence, yet they are not half so well paid as the
sleepy, well-fed, and well-housed civilians, who
pass five or six hours a day in a public office,
No gratitude whatever is shown by the Government
for the most daring and meritorious services. Will the
public believe that the gallant General and his brave
little army, who conquered Sinde, have not yet received
one penny of prize-money ?—and many of them will never
receive it, for they are numbered with the dead.

We have so recently had occasion to comment upon

the judicial anomalies into which the magistrates Pre-
siding in our police-courts are constantly betrayed, in
exercising the discretion they are invested with fur the
purpose of exercising a summary jurisdiction in respect
of certain classes of offences, that nothing short of a
case of extraordinary absurdity could induce us so soon
to recur' to the same subject. But a complaint was
heard at the Clerkenwell office on Thursday last, the
facts of which, and the magistrate's decision upon them,
so completely fulfil these extraordinary conditions, as to
leave us no option in the matter. It is clearly the duty
of a journalist to direct the attention of the public in a
channel that conducts it to so many objects intimately
blended with the comfort and security as the adminis-
tration of magisterial justice. Let us here premise that
we are far from imputing the blame of that dispropor-
tionate penalty that we are about to complain of to the
magistrate. Our accusation is against that modern
statute, an Act of the present reign, under which he
exercises what we are strongly disposed to term his
authorised indiscretion.

What is the object proposed in giving summary juris-
diction to the magistrates? To make the common and
statute law efficient by getting rid of " the law's delay,''
not of the law itself. What are the primary objects and
uses of that law? Above all others, these—to protect,
first, the person; secondly, personal rights. This pro-
tection is to be accomplished only by the certainty with
which punishment shall follow upon their violation. In
a country like this of constitutional freedom, it is very
natural and highly proper that an habitual and salutary
jealousy should be exercised over the operation of the
very laws that propose beneficent ends. The power
with which you clothe them is a transcendent one, and
for that very reason liable to abuses. It is a power
which, maintained in its right direction, is calculated to
accomplish so much good that the evils of its abuse

cannot fail to be proportionally formidable. Nov the
worst type of that abuse is the denial of justice,
which technical cunning and a long purse
can generally work through the delay of law.,
incident to those safe-guards with which that law has
been surrounded by the practice of the Constitution.
In this consists the plea fur all " summary jurisdiction;"
but surely that plea cannot extend to a transforming of
the character of crimes and offences. It cannot so far
affect their classification as to bring offences against the
person accompanied with outrageous and dangerous
violence, in the same category as the offences against
the person of the most trivial and indifferent nature.

Now what was the character of the case which has
elicited from us these remarks?

A respectable woman on her return at night, in
company with her husband and her mother, is, in the
momentary absence of the former, whilst quietly pro-
ceeding homeward, insolently accosted by a ruffian, who
drags her over to five pr six drunken companions of his,
standing outside of a beer-shop, and he insists upon her
dancing with him. On the terrified woman refusing,
and her risether's interceding for her, the ruffian with a
blow of his clenched fist knocked her down; and one of
his vagabond associates commits a similar assault on the
mother, This was the first outrage proved. Three
times the complainant, a Mrs. WRIGHT, rose upon
her feet, and on each occasion was felled to
the earth by a blow upon the mouth from
the same ruffian,—one WILCOX, residing at No. 3,
Little Guildford-street. Here were so many addi-
tional assaults. On her getting upon her legs again,
a fourth time, she shouted " Murder !" her husband, a
mechanic, came up ; the prisoner ran away ; she pur-
sued him, he turned upon her, and he felled her for the
fifth time with a violent blow. A police constable, who
overtook her, was witness to this last assault. The poor
mother proved the case, adding, that her daughter being
in the family-way at the time, she feared that she would
be killed, and gave utterance to that fear when she
rushed on after the prisoner had. struck Mrs.
WRIGHT. The proof to all the allegations was
complete and unquestionable. There were some five or
six atrocious, inhuman assaults committed upon the
complainant. The prisoner broke down in a mendacious
defence, founded on an abortive attempt to show that the
complainant in the first instance had struck him in the
eye. The injuries she bad sustained from him are
partly spoken to, and more significantly inferred. Now,
what was the penalty inflicted on this disgrace to man-
hood, this unbridled ruffian ? In the course of last
autumn we had frequent opportunity to remark on the
extravagant disproportion of the penalties which game-
owning magistrates of quarter sessions awarded
to the offences, overt or inferential, merely
of actual poachers on unsuspecting birds, absolutely
guiltless of all intention of poaching. Ten shillings
were the minimum amount of penalty—ten pounds the
maximum ; but the maximum was the rule, the minimum
the exception ; the moral guilt of all those offenders,
may it be permitted us to say, being infinitessimally small
compared with the disgusting ferocity, the cowardly
cruelty of this WILCOX. Mr. GREENWOOD said—" The
complainant was a respectable woman, and had given no
provocation. She was waiting quietly for her husband
when attacked." Surely this was to "heap coals of
fire" on the offender's head. There was not one exte-
nuating circumstance to excuse these six infamous as-
saults on a respectable and unoffending woman, in that
condition which we should have thought might have
disarmed the most justly-excited resentment in any
bosom that was warmed by one emotion of masculine
generosity. His crime was surely greater on every
principle of common sense, common feeling, common
justice, than an assault with malice prepense on a buck
rabbit, or a hen pheasant, for which ten pounds
would have been a mitigated penalty, entitling
the " Assize Justices to the praise of extreme
forbearance and humanity." Mr. GREENWOOD fined
the prisoner 21. 10s., or three weeks' imprisonment !
That is to say, on a respectable woman in Mrs. WRIGHT'S
condition, at least five several acts of violence—the
forcible carrying her over from the side of the way on
which she was walking, and the four severe blows in-
flicted upon her by Wlncox—are to be atoned for by
the law of " summary jurisdiction " after the rate of ten
shillings apiece ! One furtive glance of a partridge from
an unqualified eye will cost a man twice as much. A
hare km eked on the head, or a pheasant winged, with-
out a stamped license, in its flight from the petty lar•
cenies it has been committing on your own wheat-crop,
is of so much more value is our boasted social and con-
stitutional system—in our country of equal laws and
even-handed justice—that the wrong done to it can ha
expiated only at a four hundred per cent. increased
amercement over that which is payable for the most das-
tardly attack that scoundrelism can make on female help-
lessness. Verily, the might of reform is yet but in its
slumbering infancy.

The intelligence from, Constantinople is to the 27th
of April. From all accounts a very bad feeling prevails
between the Porte and the Court of Greece. A letter
received in Paris states. that on the 26th the Porte had
transmitted a fresh note to the representatives of the
three protecting powers on the subject of the Greek
question, declaring Oita it had been compelled to take
some precautionary measures on the frontier, but pro-
testing at the same time that it has no other object than
to secure the tranquillity of its provinces. It also
pointed out the great difference between its conduct
and that of the Greek Cabinet, whilst it

makes efforts to ob:ain through the in
termediation of the Powers, and under their guarantee,
satisfactory assurances on the subject. The Cabinet of
Athens, it was said, gave a direct answer, couched in
no very measured terms. Baron BOURQUENAY, the
French Ambassador, accompanied by his lady, arrived
in a French steamer on the 26th. Many of the French
residents met at the wharf at Tophai.6 to receive him in
a body. The Turks gave him the usual welcome. Ac-
cording to accounts from Beyrout of the 13th of April,
great disturbance prevailed in that quarter, and a con-
kst taken place between the Druses and Maronites,
in several lives were lost.
the accounts from Madrid are to the 9th inst. The
Chamber of Deputies was still engaged in discussing
the clauses of the Property-tax, and not a little excite.
ment was caused by a motion of Senor Moitom, to the
effect that the Government should assess the tax in the
provinces on its own responsibility. After a warm de-
bate the motion was agreed to by a majority of 109 to
25. General PRIM, having received permission to reside
at Madrid, arrived there on the Bth.

The Funds continue rather depressed. The Three
per Cents. closegl at 341 cash, and 35 at sixty days ; 97
millions done. Five per Cents., 25i at sixty days ;
Coupons, 28 9-16 at sixty days.

The French Chamber of Deputies having adopted a'

„ .
the important clauses of the eakier des Chat ges, which
fixes the charges to be levied by companies on the car-
riage of merchandise and goods on the Northern Line,
proceeded on Thursday to consider the eighth clause,
which had been reserved. That clause related to the
course which the line ought to take from Lisle towards
the Belgian frontier. The Government proposed that
the line should proceed by llasebruck, and that the re-
mainder of the line should not be fixed till time had
been given for more mature consideration. The Com-

mittce on the Bill had recommended an immediate de-
cision, and proposed that it should pass by Armentiit:es
and Baillen', and branch off to Calais and Dunkirk.

Marshal SOULT opposed the direction by Arment-e:es
as being likely to prove injurious to the defence of the
country. If the line went by Bailleul, there must be a
special Bill to fortify that place, which would certainly
be inconvenient. He trusted, therefore, that the Cham-
ber, by adopting the proposition of the Committee,
would not force the Government to have recourse to
such a proceeding. The Minister for Public Works
also opposed the amendment, but without effect ; and
tie plan of the Committee was ultimately adopted. At
the commencement of the sitting the Minister of Justice
presented a Bill, demanding a sum of 2,650,000 f.
(106,0000 for repairing and beautifying the cathedral
of Notre Dame.

The Committee appointed to examine a Bill for mo-
difying the criminal code had made its report, which
recommends some material changes. On this interesting
sub;ect the Jou, nal des Debats makes the following re-
marks :

" The most important modification is that proposed in Art.
7of the Code d'lnstruction Criminelle. According to the
terms of this article, every Frenchman who has committed
a crime against another Frenchman in a foreign country, may
be prosecuted and tried in France fur this crime, but only
upon the complaint of the party injured. Thus there can be
no ex officio prosecution in such case, should the Frenchman
against whom the crime was committed be unable or un-
willing to lodge a complaint. This is contrary to the prin-
ciples of our criminal justice. In cases of crimes committed
in France, the public prosecutor waits for no such complaint.
The party injured may keep silence, but the Government,
nevertheless, pursues the criminal to punishment. Art. 7
speaks only of crimes committed in a foreign land by one
I renchman against another Frenchman. But in cases of
simple offences, if in Belgium, fur example, an offence is com-
mitted by one Frenchman against another, the offender has
only to come back into France, and there enjoy the
fruits of his iniquity under the nose of the man whom
he has injured, in perfect impunity and tranquillity. In
fine, Art. 7 requires that the crime committed by a
Frenchman in a toreign country be against another French-
man; hence it ensues that in the present state of the law
our tribunals are incompetent to apply the penalty justly due
to a Frenchman who has. while abroad, committed a crime-
-7
with those
were surely a foreigner. These restrictions of Art.
at. the. present day to be at variance
surely not adopted without the gravestmotives, but
they nevertheless appear
principles of justice which generally prevail.