The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1839-08-20 00:00:00

HOUSE OF LORDS.-FRIDAY.

The Joint-Stock Banks Acts Continuation Bill was read
, a second time.
The Assaults (Ireland) Bill (with an amendment), were
severally read the third time, and passed.
The Militia Pay Bill went through committee, as did the
Rogue Money Assessment (Scotland) Bill, the Stage Car-
riages Bill. and the Poor Rates Collection Bill. The report
of the latter bill was presented and agreed to.
Earl STANHOPE presented a petition from the Birmingham
Working Man's Association, against the Birmingham Po-
lice Bill. His lordship called attention to the manner in
which Dr. Taylor had been arrested.
The Constabulary Force (Ireland) Bill was, on the motion
of Lord DUNCANNON, read the third time, and passed.
.The Metropolitan Police Courts Bill having been read the
third time, Lord LYNDHURST moved the expulsion of the
ninth clause (relating to the increase of salaries), but it was
retained, on a division, by 36 to 11. The bill was then
passed.
On the motion that the house resolve into a committee on

the Slave Trade Suppression Bill, Lord LYNDHURST said
that he had a clause to propose, for the purpose of restricting
the operation of the bill to vessels bearing the " Portuguese'
flag, and to piratical vessels having no national character,
but which should be engaged in the slave trade.
Lord 'Wiz:To, the house being in committee, said that he
entertained no objection to such amendment, ifit were deemed
requisite.
After •conversation, in which Lord LYNDHURST, Lord
Ext.,ENßonovon, &c. took part, the amendment was under-
' derstood to b;.: adopted. 'Die bill went through committee.
In the committee on the Birmingham Police Bill, Lord
BaouunAm moved an amendment, to vest the appointment
of the commissioner in the " town council," instead of " her
'MAJESTY ;." but Lord DUNCANNON having opposed the
tk, amendment, on the ground that as the government advanced
the £lO,OOO, it ought to have this control, his lordship de-
' ferret): pres Sing the amendment until after the third reading.
The bill went through committee, and the report was ordered
,
• to be.received on Saturday.
r The other bills on the paper were then advanced a stage.
'The Poor Law Commission Continuance Bill, the Dublin
Police Bill, the Soap Duties Regulation Bill, and the Me-
tropolitan Police Courts Bill, were severally read the third
Stime and passed.
HOUSE OF COMMONS.—FRIDAY.
f? The Commons were unable to make a house, there being
only 34 instead of 40, members present at four o'clock.
-

HOUSE OF LORDS.—SATURDAY:,
orf• he royal assent was given, by commission, to several
l bills ;• among them were the "Election Petitions Bill," " the
I:,Kriso,as Bill, ' &c.
, Several Bills were brought from the Commons, and other
atteady before the house were forwarded a stage.
Lord BROUGHAM intimated that he should 'on Monday
j! puta.questiou to Lord Melbourne, as the head of her Ma.
933estYs government, relative to the unaccountable mistake
_ that seemed to pervade the General Aisembly of the Church
jiPf Scotland,- with respect to the important, proceedings that
_jwatt iakew place in their lordships' house, relative to the
mi:Airchterarder case," and the judgment of their lordships
Aiereon. •
aucTheir lordships then adjourned.
flu •
„AI , HOUSE OF COMMONS.—SATURDAY.
olis4,F. TRENCH gave notice that he should'on Monday call
attption,to the remuneration to be made to Mr. Gurney on
_account of the Bude light experiments ;—(next session) to
•the propriety of having practical and scientific investigation,
particularly as regarded the new houses of parliament, res-
pecting the best means of ventilation ;—and to the advantage
of employing persons to inspect public buildings in Europe
.where ", parliaments" are held for the purpose of obtaining
information that might be useful in the construction of the
new houses of parliament.
On the motion of Mr. BARING, it was resolved that the
house should, on Monday, resolve into committee on " the
Funding of Exchequer Bills."
The committee on the " Bank of Ireland" was deferred
(after a division) till Monday, at twelve o'clock. To inqui-
ries as to whether the government really intended to proceed
with this bill, Mr. F. BAr.ING answered that he could add
nothing to what the Chancellor of the Exchequer (who was
not in the house during any part of Saturday's sitting,) had
stated on that point.
Sir RALPH Howarin gave notice, with a view to the full
consideration of the Bank of Ireland Bill, that he should,
move a " call of the house."
The Corporate Property Alienation Prevention (Ireland)
Bill was read a third time and passed.
The Lords' amendments to the Judges' Lodgings Bill were
read the third time and passed.
Mr. BARING brought in the Duke of Marlborough's Pen-
sion Bill, which was read the first time, and ordered to be
read the second time on Monday.
The house then adjourned.

Bolarn has written a letter to his brother at Harbottle, in
which he strongly protests his innocence ; and earnestly
intreats his brothers and sisters to give him half a promise
that they will join him when he shalt.have become settled in
Botany Bay. He will be removed to the Hulks, previously
to his Nang conveyed out of the country, in about a week
or ten days.—Newcastle Journal.

Tatar. 11Y JllRY:—After the conviction of a lad yesterday
at the Central Criminal Court for a burglary in Whitechapel,
a former conviction was proved against the prisoner. The
Recorder, in charging the jury, said that a law passed the
legislature that the former conviction of any person should
be adduced in evidence, and read against him before the jury
returned their verdict in the case before them. This had
been found to prejudice a prisoner upon his trial for felony)
for it was impossible that a jury should not in some measure
be sometimes disposed to look unfavourably and with a pre-
judiced mind towards a person on his trial, and be disposed
in some measure to convict where the circumstantea
in evidence did not exactly warrant a conclusioniof a 16rlsoner'4
gUilt. The law was repealed by a former House 'of Com-
mons, and instead of the conviction being put in before the
verdict was returned, it was now put in afterwards; when the
jury ht.d to find whether the prisoner had been convicted On
a former occasion or not ; and if they found in the affirrnitiVd
the court measured the punishment accordingly. The change
was a most salutary one, and prisoners now had a fair trial
without the minds of juries being prejudiced by former con-
victions being mentioned before the verdict was returned.
He was much surprised that any parliament should have
passed such a law as the one he had adverted to, for it was
contrary to the principles of British justice, and operated
most unfavourably towards unfortunate persons charged with
offences. The legislature had wisely repaired their error,
and had also passed a.-law giving persons charged with felony
the benefit of counsel, who were allowed to address the jury
for their clients. Some very strange things were often done
in the legislature, and it was, he would repeat, very surprising
that such a law as that for producing records of former con-
viction during a trial should ever have received the sanction
of parliament. A more strange thing than that had, how-
ever, been done by the present House of Commons. They
h 0 given their sanction to a measure for. trying prisoners
without a jury at all. (The jury looked astonished.) The
gesntlemen might well he surprised ; but it was a fact that a
bill*. lately passed the House of Commons, empowering
asinklemagistrate, upon his own judgment to convict pri-
soners in cases of felony, without any previous inquiry by a
grand jury,_or the intimation of a petty jury. Happily the
people bad been relieved by the higher branch of the legisla-
turejtom that invasion of the ancient right of the subject.
IleNlinired the caution of a former parliament, in giving
prisoners the benefit of counsel, and preventing the minds of
a jury from being inflamed by any previous knowledge of the
prisimer's character, and he was happy to say the House of
Lords had recently interfered, and successfully, to secure to
the people the safer and constitutional right of the subject to
be tried by a jury, and he trusted the time would never arrive
in England when a single magistrate, however high his at-
tainments, would have the power of convicting a man for fe-
lony on his own individual judgment. The jury said they
tiOped not, and rejoiced that such an objectionable measure
had not become law. The observations of the learned re-
corder were listened to with evident satisfaction, and we
heard a great-many persons applying the terms " infamous,"
"'shameful," to the proposition of Mr. Hawes and his clique
for abolishing trial by jury.—Morning Herald.

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