The Sun.
London, England, 1845-02-26 00:00:00

141 JP turning ..-'`2qtti

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 1845.

The House of Lords sat at Five o'clock.

Among the notices of motion was one by Lord
BROUGHAM, for Thursday week, of a Bill to transfer the
jurisdiction in divorce cases from the House of Lords to
another tribunal.

Their Lordships adjourned after sitting a very short

time.
The House of Commons sat at Twelve o'clock.
The report on the Railway Companies clauses Bill
was received.
The House then resolved itself into Committee on the
Railway Companies Consolidation Bill. Various clauses
were agreed to, as were some amendments, proposed
by Mr. AOLIONBY and other Hon. Members, and the
House resumed, on the understanding that there should
be a morning sitting on Thursday, when the Bill
would again come under consideration. The House then
adjourned for an hour and a half, and resumed at Five
o'clock.
Various petitions were presented, and notices of mo-
tion given.
Mr. WALLACE postponed his motion on the subject of
railways to the 11th March. The Honourable Gen-
tleman then brought forward the motion of which
he had given notice on the subject of the admi-
nistration of justice in Scotland, which was :
" To bring before the House the amount of business
done yearly by the Court of Session, and the nature and
extent of the duties of the judges composing that Court ;
and to ask leave to bring in a Bill to repeal so much of
the Act 1 WILLIAM IV., C. 69, as provides that there
shall be thirteen judges in the said court ; and to extend
the jurisdiction of the stipendiary county judges, called
sheriffs, by giving them the power of awarding the
punishment of transportation, in the event of the judges
in the Court of Session being reduced below the number
of thirteen."
The LORD ADVOCATE and Mr. Fox MAULE opposed
the motion, which was withdrawn.
Sir R. INGLIS then rose to call the attention of the
House to the condition of the negroes liberated from
prize slave-ships, and moved for certain papers relating
to the condition of liberated negroes in Sierra Leone
and the Mauritius.
Mr. G. W. HorE seconded the motion, and defended
the conduct of the Government as respected their treat-
ment of the liberated Africans.
A short discussion ensued, in the course of which
the proceedings of the missionaries were animadverted
upon by Mr. AGLIONBY and defended by Sir T. ACLAND,
and Mr. PLUMPTRE. The motion was agreed to.
Dr. BOWRING moved for a copy of a certain procla-
mation issused by the Governor of Hong-Kong, for a
census and registry of the inhabitants of that island.
The motion was opposed by Mr. C. Hope, on the part
of the Government.
Sir G. STAUNTON also spoke against the motion.
Dr. BOWRING eventually withdrew the motion, reserv-
ing a right to bring it forward on another opportunity.
Sir J. GRAHAM then rose to introduce his Bill
for the
,better regulation of medical practice
throughout the United Kingdom. He proposed,
first, to establish a Council of Health, to exer-
cise a superintendence over the medical education of
the kingdom ; secondly, to secure to all medical practi-
tioners equal facilities of practice throughout the United
Kingdom ; and, thirdly, by the standard of examination
as to qualifications being uniform, to establish a registra-
tion of medical practitioners, and to confine eligibility to
public medical employment to registered practitioners.
He proposed to repeal the statute of HENRY VIII.,
which gave to members of the Collegesof Physicians and
Surgeons the exclusive right of practising in a district of
seven miles round the metropolis as far as regarded re-
gistered practitioners, but ho would exempt graduates of
Oxford and Cambridge from the operation of the Bill,
the effect of which would be to exclude them from me-
tropolitan practice, unless they chose of themselves to
come within the operation of the Act, and be registered.
He hoped, however, some arrangement might be come
to, to prevent the necessity of persevering with this
clause. He proposed to repeal the Apothecaries' Act,
not totally, but only so far as parties registered under
the new Act were concerned. This would
leave the provisions of the Apothecaries' Act
imposing penalties on illegal practitioners totally
untouched, and parties practising without quali-
fication, would be in addition liable, as they
were at present, to a criminal prosecution at corn -
mon law, for pretending to be that which they were not.
Any person falsely assuming any medical title recog-
nised by the Bill to be liable to prosecution. He also
proposed to make it necessary that every examiner of the
Apothecaries' Company should be an apothecary of ten
years' standing. With regard to physicians, he thought
thirty-six ) ears of age not too late to fix as the
limit for their preliminary examination ; and with regard
to surgeons, he proposed that no one should be qualified
to act as surgeon who had not previously undergone an
examination for the degree of licentiate in surgery. He
also proposed that there should be an examination in
midwifery as well as in physic and surgery. He pro-
posed that the Council of Health should be empowered
to examine practitioners in all their branches. He con-
sidered it indispensably
necessaryroptohsaedt
ttoheshgorrtecant
body of general practitioners should be connected with
the College of Surgeons. He p
the time of university residence required by the Bill of
last year to qualify for the office of physician, and he
adhered to the plan proposed in the Bill of last year for
constituting the councils; and he also proposed to give