Star.
London, England, 1818-03-03 00:00:00

BLOOD MONEY.

Mr. BENNET, in pursuance ofnotice, rose to move
for leave to bring in a Bill to repeal and amend va.
rious Acts of Parliament relative to statutory Re-
wards on the conviction of offenders. Those Gen-
tlemen in the House who belonged entirely to the
Profession of the Law,- being better acquainted with
these matters than he was, might be supposed better
qualified for the task he had undertaken than he
could be ; but having been a Member of the Com-
mittee appointed to inquire into the State of the Po-
lice of the Metropolis ; and having lately passed a
considerable portion of his time in inquiries into sub-
jects of this nature, and feeling, in common with a
great number of individuals, that some measure like
that which he intended to propose, was indispensibly
necessary, he was induced to trouble the House with
a Bill to repeal and amend the law respecting statu-
tory rewards. The Reports of the Committee allu-
ded to, and the evidence connected with them having
so long been before the House, it would pot be neces-
sary for him to take up their time, by entering into
any long detail on the subject. He should confine
himself to stating merely the principal reasons which
induced him to bring the matter of statutory re-
wards, on conviction, at present before the House.—
There could be nothing more objectionable than the
effect which this system of rewards had of training
up offenders in all the gradations of crime, from the
first offence of the criminal, till he arrived at the last
stage, when a reward should be obtained for his con-
viction. Every person must see, that a punishment,
however slight, if certain, was much more efficacious
for the repression of offences than more severe pu-
nishments, which, it was known, were seldom inflic-
ted. There could be no question, however, that a
number of juvenile offenders were permitted to roam
at large, and to proceed from one stage in crime to
another, till they were, as it was technically called,
worth their weight.---till they weighed forty pounds.
The shocking practices to which these rewards led,
.and which were detailed by many Magistrates and
others connected with the police of the metropolis,.
might be seen in the Minutes of the Evidence taken;
by the Committee ; and for an elucidation of some
of them, he would refer more particUlitly to the evi-
dence of Mr. Shelton, Clerk of the Arraigns. On this
subject there was surely enough to warrant the inter-
ference of the House: It was stated in evidence, that
op trials, the first question frequently put to police

officers and witnesses wee, what they would gain by 1
the conviction ? and by this means persons of whose
guilt there could be no doubt were frequently, from
the difficulty of obtaining• witnesses, acquitted ;—..be-
cause witnesses felt their characters assailed by the
sort of questions which were put to them, and because
this blood-money hung like a stone about their necks. 4
Another reason for remedying this system was, that
it led to conspiracies for procuring people to commit
crimes to obtain the reward for their conviction. The
public attention had lately been powerfully called to
the subject of such conspiracies ; and an investiga-
tion respecting one was at this very time on foot.—
But this was not the first time of men lending them-
selves to the purpose of entrapping men into the
commission of offences, for the sake of obtaining the
reward for their conviction. As early as 1756, seve-
ral persons were convicted of having been concerned
conspiracies of .his nature ; one of those persons,
of the name of M'Daniel, acknowledged that 70 per-
sons in all had been convicted at different time's on
evidence furnished by him. On oneoccasion a man
voluntarily submitted to be robbed. The Judges
thought force necessary to constitute a robbery.—
Three persons concerned in this business were tried
for a conspiracy, but they were so roughly handled
by the people, that one of them was killed outright,
and another died soon afterwards. Unfortunately
these were not solitary instances. In the year 1772,
about twenty persons were the victims of such =chi-
nations.—The conspiracies which were discovered
about a year ago were well known to the House.
The case which lately happened to be discovered in
Newgate, was one in which the execution of the sen-
tence of the law had been most properly suspended.
He did not mean to say that in this case the conspi-
racy was as clearly made out as in the case of the
poor men who were convicted on the evidence of
Brock, Pelham, and Power ; but there was a well-
founded suspicion that Kelly and Spicer were the
victims of the same system. How many others
might have fallen victims to these contrivances it was
impossible to say, but the general persuasion was,
that the instances had been but too numerous.--

He was convinced he was not exaggerating, when hel
said that it had been a long established practice
in this country for individuals day after day, and
year after year to stimulate others to the commission
of crime, for the purpose of putting money in their
pockets by their conviction. It was his intention to
propose, that what were technically called Tyburn
Tickets should be continued, and that the reward of
401. should still be paid to the executors of any per-
sons killed in the pursuit of highwaymen, or the exe-
cutors of persons killed in discharging. their duty in
seizing of criminals, on whose conviction the reward
was payable. But instead of the rewards on convic-
tion, payable by the 4th, 6th, and 7th of William
and Mary, the sth of Queen Anne, and the 14th
and 15th of George 11. be intended to propose that
there should be assigned money for the expences
of prosecuting, and bringing forward witnesses, in
all cases of felony whatever, whether a conviction
did or did not take place, at the discretion of the
Judges. He thought this expense ought not to be
thrown on individuals, when it appeared that there
was a reasonable ground made out for-prosecution.
It was not his intention to trouble the House further
at present—he trusted he had made out a case suffi-
cient to shew that the system of giving what was
termed Blood Money, against which there was one
general feeling throughout the country, was an evil
which loudly called for a remedy. The Honourable
Gentleman concluded with moving for leave to bring
in a•Bill to repeal and amend certain Acts of Parlia-
ment relative to the giving statutory rewards on the
conviction of offenders.