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lodging, and clothing, as well as educating the poor, if found deficient in funds, should be confined to education alone, for there was no worse charity than that of clothing and boarding. In Bedford 30,000l. a year were so employed, and yet the town was overwhelmed with paupers. Trustees were also empowered to treat with the ministers and parishofficers, or two justices of the peace, for having the children permanently taught in the parishschool, when the founder's intention was, that they should be taught in other schools, and that intention had been frustrated by the inadequacy of the funds. Where there was no endowed school, the funds were to be applied in aid of the parish-school. Lastly, where there was a failure of the objects of the trust, the trustees were empowered to appeal to the commissioners of charitable usés. This failure was, in many cases, total; in others, partial. Under a late decree in chancery, the Tunbridge school was entitled to property of more than 4,500. of yearly rental. Five hundred pounds a year was twice as much as was wanted for that school, and the superfluous 4,000l. would be sufficient to provide for the support of two hundred schools, in which the poor children of the whole county of Keut might be educated. Mr. Brougham concluded with moving, that leave be given to bring in a bill for the better education of the poor in England and Wales. Lord Castlereagh, after expressing the satisfaction with which he had listened to the perspicuous and able speech of the honourable mover, declined giving any opinion at present on the merits of

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the proposed plan, and hoped that the bill, out of regard to the important interests involved in it, would not be pressed during the present session. Mr. Brougham declared, that he had no wish that the measure should be urged hastily on; as, independently of the benefit accruing from its discussion in that House, great advantages would arise from its discussion out of doors among the clergy and the friends of the established church. Though, therefore, he should individually be better pleased to see the bill pass in the present session, he should cheerfully submit to such delay as to the House might appear most advisable. Leave was then given to bring in the bill. On the 11th of July, it was read for the first time, and it was not afterwards proceeded in.

Its provisions were no sooner known or rather talked of, throughout the country, than strong prejudices against it began to make their appearance. Many of the adherents of the established church, blind to the additional influence which the clergy would acquire from the superintendence of the whole system of education, were dissatisfied, because the scheme did not exclude dissenters from its benefits. Many of the dissenters, on the other hand, were alarmed (and with much better reason than their opponents could show for their fears) at the authority with which it clothed parish ministers, and at the state of dependence upon them, in which the teachers were to be placed. Indeed, it cannot be denied, that the tendency of the measure was extremely advantageous to the established church: and though this could

not be any recommendation of it to those who were not members of that church, yet a conscienous dissenter ought to support a scheme which promises to be highly beneficial to the morals and character of the people, even if it should prove an ally to a religious system of which he does not completely approve. The general interests of morality, knowledge, and religion, ought to overwhelm minor differences of belief.

While Mr. Brougham was thus endeavouring to take away the primary causes of crime, by devising means for inculcating habits of orderly conduct in the rising generation, Sir James Mackintosh was labouring to contribute to the general improvement, by freeing our criminal code from some of its supposed atrocities and anomalies. In this department he had come forward as the successor of the late Sir Samuel Romilly, and as the patron of the bills which that eminent lawyer had frequently, though always ineffectually, tried to carry through parliament. The committee, which had been appointed in the preceding session, to take into consideration our criminal code, so far as regarded the infliction of capital punishment, had, by its report, recommended considerable alterations; and, in compliance with its suggestions, Sir James Mackintosh, after moving for its reappointment, applied, on the 9th of May, for leave to bring in six different bills, for the amendment of our penal system. The first two were for the repeal of the acts by which it was made a capital offence to steal privately in any dwelling house to the value

of forty shillings, or in any shop or warehouse to the value of five shillings. These bills had been already twice adopted by the House of Commons, but their progress had been arrested in the upper House, in consequence of the opposition of the late lord chief justice and the lord chancellor. The third bill was, for taking away the capital punishment from the offence of stealing on navigable rivers. There could be no pretext for affixing a severer penalty to that crime, than to robbery on canals, which, however, it had never been thought fit to punish by death. The fourth bill was, for repealing certain acts of parliament, which inflicted capital punishment on actions, that were either no offences morally, or, at most, only misdemeanors. Among the acts so proposed to be repealed, were the 1st and 2nd of Philip and Mary, making it capitally criminal for an Egyptian to remain one year in the country; the 18th of Charles II. chap. 3, making the residence of notorious thieves in Northumberland and Cumberland, a capital offence; the 9th Geo. I. chap. 29, making it a capital felony to be found disguised in the Mint; and the 12th Geo. I. chap. 29, making it a capital felony to injure Westminster-bridge. The fifth bill was for the repeal of those parts of certain acts of parliament, which made the offences specified in them capital; so that the offences would be converted from capital into simple felonies. Among these offences were the taking away any maid, wife, or widow, for the sake of her fortune; the receiving of stolen goods; the wounding of cattle, and the de

stroying of trees; the breaking down the banks of rivers; the sending threatening letters; and the capital felonies created by the Marriage act and the Bankrupt laws. For all these crimes it was proposed, instead of the punishment of death, to substitute transportation, imprisonment, or hard labour, at the discretion of the court. The sixth and last of these bills was for mitigating the severity of punishment in certain cases of forgery, and the crimes connected therewith.

Three of these bills, namely, the first, the fourth, and the fifth, passed through the House of -Commons without much opposition. But at the suggestion of Sir James Mackintosh himself, the fifth was not extended to offences relating to fines and recoveries, or marriage registers, certificates, or licences. His reason for this alteration was, that these offences belonged to the class of forgeries, and would be comprised with more propriety in the sixth bill.

These three bills were passed by the Lords, though not without much opposition, and some alterations. In the bill for repealing the laws, by which certain specified acts, that either involved little or no moral guilt, or were, at most, mere misdemeanors, the clause, which abrogated the provisions of the Black act, respect ing persons who assembled with their faces blacked, was, on the motion of the chancellor, omitted. The bill concerning privately stealing in shops was disapproved of by the chancellor. He thought, that it did not provide sufficiently against the loss of property to an amount, which, though of little consequence to some, might be large enough to ruin others. The

existing provisions of our criminal code were intended for the protection, not merely of men of great fortunes, but also of men of small property, who could not so well protect themselves; and it was a matter of grave consideration whether the whole fruits of an industrious life ought to be exposed to the operation of a speculative measure. It had been said, that the severity of the law deterred prosecutors from having recourse to its aid; but his own experience inclined the other way. In the eighteen years, during which it had been his painful duty to receive the Recorder's report, he had been always surprised to find so little regret manifested by prosecutors in general at proceeding on capital charges, But if the severity of the punishment deterred prosecutors, the fear of it also deterred criminals; and it had been the firm conviction of lord Ellenborough, that the apprehension of capital punishment had saved many from the commission of this offence. But thongh such were bis opinions, he would not, if parliament were disposed to try a merciful experiment, be very strenuous in his objections, provided an amendment were agreed to, that persons stealing to the value of more than 104. should still be subject to capital punishment. With this amendment, accordingly, the bill was agreed to.

In the bill for the commutation of the punishment of certain capital felonies, the chancellor's objections were much more numerous. One of the offences included in it, was, the killing, naiming, or wounding of cattle, and the cutting down of trees in orchards or plantations; so that,

if it passed, a person might de stroy a farmer's whole stock of cattle, and root up or cut down whole acres of plantations, without being subject to capital punishment, though the mischief done, infinitely exceeded that of crimes against which the law was still to denounce death. True, it seemed hard, that an individual should forfeit his life for maiming one cow, or cutting down a single tree. But the hardship was the result of the very nature of law. Law necessarily proceeded by general descriptions; and general descriptions necessarily included all cases, the trivial as well as the aggravated. It was for mercy and discretion to remedy the inequality thus produced. Neither could he agree to exempt from the punishment of death persons breaking down the banks of rivers or sea banks, or destroying the floodgates or sluices on the great level of the fens. Let any one look to the circumstances of Lincolnshire and some other counties, and consider the immense mischief which might be done by such offences-mischief far exceeding that of a few burglaries or highway-robberies- mischief which might deprive many families of the whole of their means of support, and might entirely annihilate sources of public as well as private prosperity; will he hesitate to say that such injuries ought to be guarded against by the most awful terrors of the law? For similar reasons, he could not agree to repeal the act for punishing with death, persons destroying certain manufactured goods, which, when he was in the habit of going the northern circuit, was regarded by the manufacturers in that quarter of the kingdom as

the principal defence of their property. He also disapproved of the clause, which took away capital punishment from the of fence of sending threatening letters, in which there was no demand of money or other valuable consideration; for nothing was more destructive of the peace of families, than the apprehensions which were excited and kept alive by secret and malicious threats of mischief. He thought that the best way of proceeding would be, to strike out, in the mean time, these and some other clauses, and to reserve them for consideration till the ensuing session, when the House might enjoy in its deliberations an aid, which it now wanted,-the opinion of the judges on their expediency.

Lord Liverpool observed, that the great defect in our criminal legislation, in its present state, was, the want of a secondary punishment of sufficient efficacy. Séveral years ago, when transportation was a removal either into a noxious climate in Africa, or to a state of servitude in the North American colonies, it excited some degree of terror. however, the system was entirely changed; and the colonial officewas besieged with applications without end from persons wishing to settle in New South Wales. It was in vain, therefore, to talk of transportation as carrying with it any degree of terror. The fact was, that to the class of offenders to whom in general it was to be applied, it was an object of indifference, or even of desire, rather than of apprehension. The committee, with which these bills originated, had begun their inquiries at the wrong end. Before they rejected the penalty

which the law now inflicted, they ought to have directed their attention to the discovery of some secondary punishment, calculated to inspire such a degree of fear as would, in a number of cases, serve as a substitute for the terror of death. The bill was finally passed, with the modifications proposed by the lord chancellor; who, at the same time, declared his intention of introducing a bill, during the next session, containing the clauses which he had at present rejected, for the purpose of obtaining the opinion of the judges upon them.

The success of these three bills, even modified as they were in the House of Lords, adds another to the many instances exhibited by our parliamentary history, of the gradual progress and ultimate triumph of sound opinions over the most inveterate prejudices. Our criminal code had long been disgraced by anomalies, aud by atrocities. Attempts had been often made to remedy these, but never with any success. The fruit of accident and caprice was venerated as the result of wisdom, and the excellence of the general administration of justice among us, was used as a broad shield to cover all the defects of our criminal code. Gradually, however, these defects were seen and acknowledged; and it began to be admitted, that some limit must be set to them, and some remedy found for them; till, at last, in the year 1820, that was accomplished almost without resistance, which Sir Samuel Romilly had laboured in vain, during the whole of his public life, to effec

tuate.

The defective state of the Bankrupt laws had long been

felt and acknowledged; but no steps were taken, in the present session, to amend them. Many of the evils which were most complained of, were of such a nature, as to be capable of being remedied by the authority of the lord chancellor, who, it was understood, was actually engaged in drawing up the orders necessary for that purpose; and though the Chancellor could not remove all the defects of the system, yet it seemed prudent, before proposing any specific plan to the House, to ascertain how far the improvements that were to be introduced by that learned and experienced judge, would extend.

A bill for amending the Marriage act was passed by the Commons, without a dissenting voice. In the upper House, though keenly supported by some of the ministerial peers, particulariy by lords Ellenborough and Westmorland, it was finally rejected. It was both prospective and retrospective; and it was principally intended to prevent the annulling of marriages on slight informalities previous to the solemnization. In the course of the debate, it was stated, that, in the preceding term, no fewer than six marriages had been annulled on such grounds.* In one, the cause of nullity was, that the consent to the marriage had been given by the mother, who was only a testamentary guardian, and

Such was the statement made in

parliament, we apprehend erroneously. Two of the cases quoted were determined many years ago. Lydiat and is meant) was decided in 1799; and Homer (we suppose Liddiard and Horner Priestley and Hughes, in 1809.

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