, in moving that the House do agree with the Lords in the said Amendment, said, he felt that he occupied a somewhat anomalous position, seeing that the promoters of the Bill, the Worcester Corporation, had used every endeavour to secure the rejection of the clause proposed on be-half of the Great Western Railway Company. Before the Committee of the House of Commons the point was argued with the result that the Committee were unanimous in rejecting the clause. The Bill then in duo course vent to the Lords, and the Committee of the Lords inserted the clause. An attempt was made to obtain the re-committal of the Bill for the purpose of having the clause discussed; but that was objected to by the Chairman, of the Committee, the Earl of Limerick, who thought that such a course would imply a reproach to the Committee, and subsequently Earl Beau-champ, on behalf of the promoters, proposed to leave out the clause on third reading. That Motion was opposed and rejected on a division by 37 to 17, and it then became a question whether he, on behalf of the promoters, should ask the House of Commons to disagree with the Lords' Amendment, for his conviction was just as strong as at first that the rating exemption allowed by the clause was an improper Amendment. It was only under stress of the pressure arising from the fear of losing the Bill altogether that he now ventured to ask the House to agree with the Amendment. The promoters had taken counsel with parties interested, and they were told that if the House now disagreed with the Amendment it would be hopeless to think of passing the Bill; it would be lost, and in such a ease a severe penalty would be inflicted upon the City of Worcester. The Lords had introduced a clause which was condemned by many persons, but the Corporation were not responsible for that; they had done their utmost to prevent it, and they now asked the House not to tax the City of Worcester with the still more evil consequences that would arise from the rejection of the Bill. Very important sanitary arrangements partially carried out would be stopped, and the loss would be great. In asking the House to accept a Motion he did not approve, but which, under the circumstances, was expedient, he found a parallel in recent proceedings of the House upon an important public measure. A proposal was introduced in an important Bill to which a majority of the House attached great importance as a matter of principle. That was rejected by the other House of Parliament, and yet the Leaders of the majority in the Commons advised acceptance of the Lords' Amendment, not, as they said, because they approved of it, but because an opposite course would jeopardize the Bill, and so the Lords' Amendment on the subject of medical relief was accepted, merely because time was short, and otherwise the object of the Registration Bill would have been imperilled. For similar reasons, he begged; the House to accept the Amendment to this Bill, and hoped that he would be supported by others who yet, as he did, disapproved of the clause in itself.

agreed in many of the remarks just made, but not in the Motion moved by the hon. Member. He said it was an improper clause, which could not be too strongly reprobated, but he asked the House to agree to it, because, he said, it would be prejudicial to the interests of Worcester if the House did not. The answer to that surely was that if it would be prejudicial to the City of Worcester on the one hand, and to the prejudice of all the rating authorities of the country on the other hand, then the City of Worcester ought to give way. He should vote a negative to the Motion.

said, he hoped the House would agree with the Lords' Amendment for several reasons. First, because if the House did not do so, it would put an end to those negotiations and courtesies under which Private Bill legislation was conducted. The Great Western Railway Company opposed the Preamble of the Bill before the Committee, and without producing any evidence, they requested to have a clause of this sort inserted in the exact form provided by the Public Health Act of 1875, under which they claimed partial exemption from the local rate. The Corporation of Worcester, for some reason or other, sought to pass this Bill to enable them to extend the boundaries of their borough, and include within those boundaries some 2,000 acres of what was almost all agricultural land, with a sparse population not exceeding three persons to an acre. That was with the view of making promenades, drives, or other purposes having nothing to do with sanitary regulations. The Great Western Railway, who had a line on the estate, and who within the borough paid their share of the rates, objected, and said—"if you want to do this, you should give us—

said, the Amendment which his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Stockport (Mr. Hopwood) had submitted to the Committee proceeded upon the theory that the offence defined by the sub-section already amounted in law to the crime of rape, and that if the sub-section were passed as it stood the effect would be to convert what was now a felony into a misdemeanour. Several hon. Members seemed to be of that opinion; but some hon. Gentlemen, not following the law of the hon. and learned Member for Stockport, rather rested their opposition to the sub-section on the ground that the sub-section would introduce a new offence, which might be the cause of considerable extortion, and possibly of great injustice. What he (Mr. Fowler) wished to submit to the Committee was this. If his hon. and learned Friend was right in the contention that procuration by threats and intimidation already amounted to the criminal offence of rape, then, no doubt, the sub-section ought to be omitted, because the Committee would not wish to convert into a misdemeanour what was already a felony. But there were equally great authorities—he referred especially to the Attorney General (Sir Richard Webster) and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby (Sir William Harcourt)—who maintained the opinion that there were offences which fell within the four corners of the sub-section, but which did not amount to the offence of rape. Admitting, then, that the offence described was an offence which ought to be punished—and the hon. and learned Member for Stockport did not dispute that grave doubts were entertained by lawyers as to whether the existing law covered it or not—it was surely wise for the Committee at once to deal with it, and put that disputed question beyond all doubt for the future by making a misdemeanour of the offence which did not already amount to rape. He would not trouble the Committee with any arguments on the point; but he believed there were cases of threats, and what might be described as intimidation, which did not in law amount to rape, and upon which no jury would give a conviction if the charge of rape were preferred. There was, however, one thing to which he wished to draw attention. The hon. and learned Member for Christchurch (Mr. Horace Davey) had spoken satirically of the Government not knowing their own minds about the Bill, and about their own clause. He (Mr. Fowler) wished to point out that the clause was not the clause either of the late or of the present Government. It was introduced into the Bill in the House of Lords by so great an authority as Lord Bramwell, who drew it, and who was, of course, aware of the existing state of the law. The clause was inserted at the instance of Lord Bramwell, and was accepted by the Government, because they were of opinion that there was an offence, not dealt with at present, which this clause could deal with, and ought to deal with. He (Mr. Fowler), therefore, asked the Committee to retain the sub-section, as it dealt with a matter about which lawyers differed, and would make a misdemeanour of a very serious offence.

said, he did not think his hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. Fowler) had quite grappled with what was before the Committee. It was now conceded that to obtain possession of a woman by threats or intimidation was clearly a rape in law. They had had some trouble to get that conceded; but now it was beyond doubt. But it was further argued that there might be some threats and intimidation which did not amount to rape—in cases, for instance, as he presumed, where the threats or intimidation had not procured the submission of the girl. If they had procured the submission of the girl, he did not see how that could amount to anything less than rape. It was urged, then, that there was something less than rape which it was desired to punish. But the inconvenience in the matter was this. They were now dealing with the Criminal Law, and presumably knew what they meant in proposing those Amendments; but how were other people to gather what they meant when they used involved language of this sort? They first took the offence of rape, and then said there might be some other offence which did not quite amount to that, but which must be provided for; and the result would be, if this sub-section was passed, that in every case in which it was proved on the trial that the prisoner used threats or intimidation the jury would only find him guilty of a misdemeanour. Was that what was really meant? There ought, for goodness sake, to be some attempt to make the law consistent, reasonable, and clear. It was all very well to say they had a legal authority of high standing in "another place" to assist in drawing the Bill; but that legal authority was not here. If they had him here he might possibly be converted, for there was no more candid man alive than Lord Bramwell. The clause as it stood was involved and mischievous. If they chose to make it a little more precise in its definition, well and good; it then might be made to say that on a trial for rape the jury might take a view similar to that expressed by the late Home Secretary (Sir William Harcourt), and find the prisoner guilty, not of rape, but of something less, which ought to be punished if the crime of rape could not be established. If the jury thought the milder offence was proved, but not the heavier one, they should be at liberty to convict of the milder offence. He (Mr. Hopwood) would not resist a provision of that sort. But if the clause were passed as it stood, he knew what the effect would be—that the jury in all these cases would jump to the conclusion that only the milder form of the offence had been made out. That might not, perhaps, be a bad thing in itself; but it was not quite in the direction of the severe Code which they were supposed to be trying to set up.

wished to state exactly what he regarded as the central feature of this clause. There was a form of intimidation which was not only, technically, in law a rape, but it would be held to be rape by any jury who tried the case, and in such a case the indictment ought to be for rape. If a man held a loaded pistol to a woman's head, and said, "Unless you submit I will shoot you," that would be, unquestionably, a rape. But he would give another illustration of what he did not think—and he owned that his opinion on the matter was not of any great weight—would amount to rape, and no jury would convict a man of rape in such a case. Suppose a man had had connection with a woman before she was married, and the woman afterwards married another man, and the first man wished to have possession of her again, and said to her—"Unless you come to my house to-night and submit to me, I will inform your husband as to what were our relations before your marriage." That was not rape—no jury would find it so; but was it a thing which was not to be punished? Were they to let one act of intimidation go scot free because another act of intimidation actually amounted to rape? That was really the whole case. It was said that such a provision would throw confusion into the Criminal Law. Not at all. The person prosecuted would be dealt with according to the facts of the case. If the man was guilty of the first class of intimidation, he would be indicted for rape; if for the second class, he would be indicted under this clause; and the clause would be totally insufficient unless it was adopted in this form?

said, he was very sorry that they had not heard from the Attorney General a proposal to substantially modify or else to abandon the clause, for it was outside the scope and purpose of the Bill, and would introduce a new offence of a most dangerous kind into their Criminal Law. He quite agreed with the right hon. Member for Derby (Sir William Harcourt) that violent intimidation and threats might constitute rape, and the whole question was for the jury whether the girl consented or not. If there was violence which so overwhelmed her mind that she submitted without consent, that was rape. But the illustration which the right hon. Gentleman gave on the previous night was the case of a girl being induced to consent to surrender herself without resistance to her seducer on his saying that he would dismiss her father from his situation, or give some information to somebody about her own loss of virtue. But a case of that kind was not a matter which that House would over protect by its laws. If such a law were passed, the result would be that where it was discovered that a girl had had illicit connection with a man she would say—"It is true I submitted myself, and accompanied him to a place where he took possession of my person, and that I made no resistance; but then he told me that if I did not allow him to do what he wished, he would tell stories about me, or get me dismissed, or my father dismissed." That was an accusation which no man could combat or defend himself against—an accusation which there was not the least occasion in this Bill for the first time to turn into a crime. There was no difficulty about the matter. If the clause were passed, that which had hitherto been a rape by Common Law would still be a rape, although it might come in the category described by the clause; but the real effect of the clause would be to enlarge the Criminal Law by making that a crime in future which had not been a crime hitherto, and which, as he believed, there was no necessity at all for making into a crime. It would be a crime the accusation of which it would be impossible for people to defend themselves from. Under those circumstances, and as it had nothing to do with the protection of women or children, it would be far wiser for the Committee to hold by the law as it had existed for so many years, and not extend it in the way proposed. The law of false representation and pretences was an entirely different matter. So long ago as the fifth year of this Reign, the late Bishop Wilberforce succeeded in passing that into law. He (Mr. Clarke) did not know that there had been any indictment under it; but there it was, and perhaps it was as well that it should be left on the Statute Book. He hoped the Committee would not dangerously undertake to enlarge the law in the manner now proposed.

said, he thought there was a deficiency in the law which ought to be remedied. He had frequently heard, as other hon. Members must have done, cases where a girl had resisted with her whole strength up to a certain point, and then, overcome partly by fear and partly by threats, had given way, and submitted to be ravished, and because she had not resisted to the end the prisoner had been acquitted. It had been said that a threat or intimidation might amount to rape; but such a case was very rare, as such threat or intimidation must be of such a character as to deprive a woman of her power of resistance. He was so anxious that the Bill should pass as speedily as possible that he would not propose any Amendment; but he quite agreed with the observation of his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Stockport (Mr. Hopwood) that the clause should be amended in this particular—that, as in many other criminal cases, it should be enacted that upon a trial for rape it might be permitted to the jury to find the prisoner guilty of a misdemeanour. That was a well-known enactment in many Acts of Parliament; and he thought that if this clause were so altered it would be considerably improved, and would become a very valuable provision for protecting many women who were not protected as the law stood at present.

said, the reason why he had not risen before to-night was because he expressed his view of this particular point as thoroughly as he possibly could on the previous evening. As to the views advanced by the hon. and learned Member for Stockport (Mr. Hopwood) and the hon. and learned Member for Plymouth (Mr. Clarke), he had never contended that there might not be threats and intimidation which amounted to rape. He was glad to find that two hon. and learned Members whose opinions on the Criminal Law were so much more valuable than his own had repeated the law as he laid it down last night. The hon. and learned Member for Plymouth agreed with him that if the offence now aimed at was to be punished, it was an offence which did not amount to rape—that there were, in fact, offences of this nature which were not covered by the law of rape. The simple question was whether they were offences which ought to come within the law or not. He thought they should; and he asked the Committee to declare that they ought to be admitted to the Criminal Law.

wished to know how this point could be got over, that where a man was indicted for rape it might be urged that it was procured by threats and intimidation, and a reference to this Statute would be made to show that it was a misdemeanour, and thereupon the Judge would be obliged to acquit the prisoner of the charge of rape?

said, the safest and the simplest way would be to insert words to meet the case.

suggested that the necessary Amendment might be made in Clause 8.

said, that under those circumstances he would withdraw his Amendment.

said, the question of consent was for the jury to determine—it was for them to say whether the girl had submitted under threats or not. He threw aside all refining arguments about the extent of the intimidation—the real question was whether the woman consented or not. He protested most strongly against putting these words in. He knew the learned Attorney General was distinguished in all other branches of the law except the Criminal Law; and he would ask him whether he would assent to the introduction of some words in the first line of the sub-section to the effect that the offence of intimidation did not amount to rape, or whether it would be wiser to omit the sub-section altogether, and leave to Clause 8 the consideration of what did and what did not amount to rape? He (Mr. Warton) was not going to be bound down by authority; and he would say that whoever drew up the clause, even though it was Lord Bramwell himself, had mixed up three or four things which ought to have been kept separate.

said, he had no wish to keep up the discussion; but he was bound to say that he was not satisfied with the explanation of the clause which had been given. It was a case of rape or no rape, and in order to punish rape there must be such an over-powering of the will of the woman as to leave her no alternative but absolute submission. They might draw the line as finely as they could about the precise degree of intimidation, but it would be of very little use. It was a great many years since he had been in a Criminal Court; but his recollection was that it was a matter of extreme difficulty to procure a conviction in cases of rape upon adults. The right hon. Member for Derby (Sir William Harcourt) had put two cases to the Committee—one, the case of a threat by a paramour; the other, the case of a threat to discharge the girl or her father from a situation. But no jury would give a conviction in cases of that kind, because they would not consider that the influence on the mind of the person who submitted was of that nature which was necessary to constitute crime on the part of the assailant. In a case of rape it would be necessary to show that the will of the person who submitted had been completely overcome and overpowered. He, therefore, ventured to submit to his hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General that the wording of the clause should be so amended as to make the crime consist, not in the success of the person charged in having overcome the woman, but in the threat and intimidation; and he would suggest that these words should be inserted—

"Any person who shall threaten or who shall use intimidation in order to procure any woman or girl to have unlawful connection shall be guilty of a misdemeanour."

That would make the threat, and not its success, the offence. Such an alteration would cover the cases mentioned by the right hon. Member for Derby. If necessary, he (Mr. Serjeant Simon) would himself propose an Amendment to that effect; but in the meanwhile he merely threw out the suggestion to see whether the hon. and learned Attorney General would be willing to adopt it.

said, he quite admitted that there were threats and intimidation which would constitute rape; but there were threats and intimidation which would not, and the question was whether the latter should go without punishment. He was not prepared, therefore, to accept the Amendment.

said, he would now propose the Amendment which he had just mentioned, the object of which was to make it an offence to threaten or to use intimidation for the purpose of obtaining the woman's consent. He proposed to strike out the words "by threats or intimidation procures or endeavours to procure," in order to insert the words "any person who shall threaten to use intimidation in order to procure," &c.

said, he was sure that his hon. and learned Friend would be sorry to take up the time of the Committee unnecessarily. The words, however, "by threats or intimidation procures or endeavours to procure" were in the clause already, and always had been, and they entirely covered the Amendment of his hon. and learned Friend. In point of fact, the words of the sub-section, as they stood, were stronger than those proposed in the Amendment. As a matter of fact, his hon. and learned Friend proposed to leave only the threats, without touching the result produced by those threats.

said, that if his Amendment were adopted the words "to procure unlawful connection" would still remain; and it was because he believed that the clause would otherwise be a failure that he proposed to make the threat to procure an offence. He believed that that was the only way of giving real life and effect to the clause.

said, he was inclined to agree with the hon. and learned Member. He thought it was very important to keep the two classes of offence—rape and procuring—perfectly distinct from each other. In the one case, where threats only were used, and by those threats unlawful connection was brought about, everybody would understand that that was a rape, and, therefore, punishable with a higher sentence. But what they now wanted to secure was that if a person should endeavour by throats to procure either by himself, or any other person, unlawful connection, and connection did not follow, that that should be a punishable offence also. He understood that the Amendment, if adopted, would punish the offence of using threats, and in that way two distinct offences would be created. The higher offence was already punishable, and it ought to be kept quite distinct from the minor offence. He thought that the object of the hon. and learned Gentleman was a very good one, and so far as he understood it at the present moment he should certainly support it.

agreed with the hon. and learned Gentleman in the object of his Amendment, but not as to the way in which he proposed to carry it out.

wished to ask the ruling of the Chair whether the word "threats" now stood part of the subsection or not?

replied in the affirmative.

said, he would move then the omission of the word "threats" in order to substitute the words "fraudulent means." His object was to simplify the clause, and to make it an offence for any person who "by fraudulent means or intimidation procures." He hoped the Committee would accept the Amendment, because, if it were adopted, he thought it might be possible to leave out Sub-sections 2 and 3 altogether. It must be quite clear that the word "intimidation" covered the word "threats." Anyone who used threats must be said to intimidate. He did not know whether there was any subtle distinction in the legal mind between the two terms, but he wanted to make it perfectly clear; and, therefore, he proposed to leave out the word "threats." In the 2nd sub-section false pretences and false representations were included in the words "fraudulent means." In fact, it was apparent that that must be the object of the framer of the Bill, because the sub-section said "false pretences, false representations, or other fraudulent means," clearly showing that both were considered to be a species of fraudulent means.

said, that as this Amendment had been practically discussed for several hours on a previous evening, he hoped the word "threats" would be allowed to stand. He quite sympathized with the object of his hon. and gallant Friend in desiring to simplify the clause, and the second Amendment on the Paper was one in his own name, in which he proposed to insert, after "intimidation," the words—

"Or by false pretences, false representations, or other fraudulent means,"

with a view of moving afterwards the omission of Sub-sections 2 and 3. The reason why the words "fraudulent re- presentations" were inserted, as well as "fraudulent means," was that they already appeared in an existing Statute, and therefore it was desirable to retain the same words in this instance.

wished to ask a question with regard to the words in line 23. The sub-section read—

"By threats or intimidation procures, or endeavours to procure, any woman or girl to have unlawful carnal connection."

He had carefully studied the provisions of the Bill during the last fortnight or three weeks; but he failed to understand what was meant by the phrase "unlawful carnal connection," because the carnal connection, in order to be punishable, must be unlawful, illicit connection not being unlawful in itself. He wished to know whether there was any special meaning attached to the word "unlawful?"

said, the words which appeared in the clause were words which were used in the old Statute, and they were thoroughly and perfectly well understood. For that reason they had been retained in the present Bill.

said, he would now propose the Amendment to which he had just referred—namely, to insert, after "intimidation, the words—

"False pretences, false representations, or other fraudulent means."

His object in proposing the Amendment was to put the three sub-sections into one. As they stood at present, they rendered the clause absolute nonsense, and the object of the Amendment was to simplify it.

pointed out that there was a Proviso to the 2nd subsection providing that it should not apply where the woman or girl knew that the connection brought about by means of false pretences, false representations, or other fraudulent means, was unlawful. There was also a distinction in the two offences defined by the 1st and 2nd sub-section. The 1st sub-section made any person punishable who, by throats or intimidation, procured, or endeavoured to procure; while the 2nd sub-section made it a punishable offence for any person, by false pretences, false representations, or other fraudulent means, to procure.

said, he thought that the whole case was covered by the words he proposed to insert, which provided that it should be punishable for any person, by threats or intimidation, or by false pretences, false representations, or other fraudulent means, to procure, or endeavour to procure.

said, he had some difficulty in knowing what was actually going on in the Committee. So far as he could understand, it was proposed to make the offence of endeavouring to procure a punishable offence; but it would leave the offence of procuring untouched. ["No!"] That only showed the difficulty of knowing what was going on. He warned the Committee that it could make no difference whether fraudulent means, or false pretences, or false representations were used, so long as the person principally interested was not deceived.

said, that before the Amendment was accepted, the Committee ought to know that the effect of it would be to repeal the 49th section of 24 & 25 Vict. That section, which had been in operation for many years, limited the age of a person upon whom false representation could be imposed to 21 years; and the effect of the alteration now proposed was to repeal that limitation of 21 years, and to strike out the clause from the Act of Parliament, 24 & 25 Vict. He confessed his own opinion was that when they had a clause already in operation in an existing Statute, and which had been in operation for a considerable time, it would be a great pity to repeal it in order to substitute something that was substantially the same in a new Act. He thought it would be far better to leave the old Act in force.

said, it was quite true that there was a clause to that effect in the 49th section of 24 & 25 Vict., making it an offence to procure improper connection with a woman under 21 years of age by threats. It was now proposed to add to the offence intimidation; and he did not see why procuring by means of false representation should not be an offence in regard to a woman of 25 or 30, as well as to one under 21 years of age. In all other respects the existing law would remain. He thought that the proposals of the Home Secretary were right, and he hoped the Committee would adopt them.

said, he would like to know precisely what those words meant. For instance, supposing a man were to promise a woman £100, which, in the case of a Member of that House, would probably not be considered very much, and then were only to give her £50, the question might be raised whether, in such a case, there had not been a fraudulent pretence.

said, that the words "fraudulent pretence" were very well understood in law by those who administered an Act of Parliament. He seldom differed from his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Plymouth (Mr. Clarke) in regard to a matter of Criminal Law; but in this instance he could not quite agree with his hon. and learned Friend, who expressed his disinclination to repeal a section of an old Act of Parliament, in order to put it into a new one. He (the Attorney General) thought it would be more convenient to repeal the section of the existing law, and to place it in the new Act. Sometimes a difficulty arose from having a number of sections contained in different Acts of Parliament; and it was much better, when they clearly knew what they intended to do, to put the section in a new Act.

said, he thought that this Amendment, coupled with the observation of the Home Secretary, that he intended to propose the omission of Sections 2 and 3, made the proposal a somewhat dangerous and difficult one. The Proviso, as it stood, enacted that where a woman consented, no matter by what means that consent was brought about, the false pretence was not to apply; but it was now proposed that where a woman was induced to consent by false pretences, false representations, or other fraudulent means, although she knew perfectly well what it was she was consenting to, the clause should apply. As he read the Proviso and the clause together, it made it punishable for any deception to be resorted to, like a mock marriage, or something of that kind, where a woman was induced to sacrifice her virtue by means of fraud or deceit; and any man who took advantage of such false representation or deceit to obtain connection with a woman who was not married to him would, on conviction, be liable to imprisonment for two years. It was all very well to say that the words proposed to be added in reference to fraudulent pretences and fraudulent representations occurred in an existing Act of Parliament; but he was not aware—and perhaps some Member of the Government would inform him if it was so—that any judicial interpretation of those words had been given, or whether any case had been decided. He knew that in the ordinary Criminal Law the obtaining of goods by false pretences was open to a variety of interpretations; and knowing that fraudulent means and fraudulent devices were liable to be interpreted in an extremely wide sense, he wished to know how those words were likely to be construed in this particular instance? Would conspiracy, for instance, be construed in the same manner as an ordinary indictment for false pretences? The case put by the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere) would not be one of ordinary false pretences, but was a promise of something in the future which was not performed in its entirety. Was it intended under the clause that a man who promised marriage to a woman, and by that promise secured possession of her, if he did not afterwards marry her, might be accused of having obtained possession of her by fraudulent means? That was a very serious point, for he believed that in this country it had not been uncommon to obtain possession of a woman under promise of marriage. Was it to be set up that in such cases, in future, there would be the prospect of an indictment for procuring a woman under false pretences, false representations, or other fraudulent means? He thought there ought to be some illustration given to show what kind of false pretences would be punishable. It would be too much for a woman to induce a man knowingly and willingly to go with her, and then to turn round and give him two years' imprisonment on the charge that she had been influenced by the false representations made to her. He thought that would be carrying the Criminal Law to a dangerous length.

said, he entirely agreed with the observations of the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down. He saw great danger in the clause, especially as there was to be no limitation in regard to age. He also concurred entirely with the view of the hon. and learned Member for Plymouth (Mr. Clarke). When the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere) asked what fraudulent pretences meant, the hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General gave a very vague and indefinite answer. He simply referred to some provisions in other Acts of Parliament; but he did not inform the Committee that they were in any way analogous to the clause it was now proposed to insert. He could not, for the life of him, understand why, if a man obtained possession of a certain thing on the promise to pay a certain sum of money, and then did not pay the whole of it, he should be found guilty of having made a fraudulent representation. The case of a mock marriage instanced by the hon. Member for Oldham (Mr. Lyulph Stanley) was one that was quite to the point; and he (Mr. Cavendish Bentinck) would add another which had been brought to his recollection by an observation which had been made by the right hon. and learned Member for Taunton (Sir Henry James). He referred to the case of marrying a deceased wife's sister. It certainly appeared to him that if they passed this clause every man who married his wife's sister would run the risk of being tried for misdemeanour. He had supported the validity of such marriages ever since he had had the honour of a seat in that House. He believed that a large number of such marriages were contracted by women who did not know that they were in every way illegal; and the adoption of this clause, in its present shape, might affect the persons who contracted such marriages, not only whether they were contracted in England, but abroad. He knew that there were many cases where a man who desired to marry his deceased wife's sister, and knowing that he could not be legally married in England, thought that by going to another country where such a marriage was not unlawful he rendered it legal so far as this country was concerned. Of course, that was done in ignorance of the law; but marriages of that kind did take place abroad, and, having been consummated, the persons who had contracted them came back to England, when the woman found that, according to the law of England, she was no longer her brother-in-law's wife. In such a case, would it be held that he had obtained possession of her person by fraudulent misrepresentations? He recollected a case which came under his cognizance a few years ago, where a highly respectable Roman Catholic priest discovered that he had rendered himself liable to a charge of felony by having performed the marriage ceremony in one of these cases, and when the Registrar was not present. It might not be known to all Members of the House that marriage with a deceased wife's sister, in the event of certain formalities being complied with, were valid in the Roman Catholic Church. If a man was desirous of contracting a marriage with his deceased wife's sister, and was told that he could not do so lawfully, he had only to go to his priest, and, having obtained the formality of a dispensation, the marriage, according to the regulations of the Roman Catholic Church, was lawful. A woman, therefore, under such circumstances, would be induced to believe that on receiving a dispensation the marriage was perfectly lawful, and that she was the genuine wife of her brother-in-law. But, under this clause, if the brother-in-law discarded her, as he would be entitled to do, seeing that the marriage, according to the law of the land, was unlawful, he might find that he had placed himself in a position to be indicted for the criminal offence of misdemeanour. At present the law limited the age at which a woman could be deceived by fraudulent representations to 21 years; and he was astonished to hear a man of the experience of the right hon. Member for Derby (Sir William Harcourt) declare that the age of the women made no difference, but that the provisions of the law ought to be extended, no matter what the age was. Surely the right hon. Gentleman knew that there were constant instances of extortion where a woman sought to obtain money by bringing charges of an improper character against a man. Almost every day cases of that kind were to be found in the newspapers. Not more than three days ago he saw a report of the case of a woman of 17 years of age who was tried at the Durham Assizes on seven distinct charges of extortion. The right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary talked about the purity of their homes being invaded; but he would ask the right hon. Gentleman how he regarded that question in reference to the male sex? Were they to have no care of their young men? By raising the age of protection for women, were they to throw the door open to every species of extortion against young men? He failed to see why they should extend the present limit of 21 years. He had certainly heard no serious objection to that limit being retained.

said, bethought the Committee ought to bear in mind two things—namely, the offence with which they were dealing, and the necessity of giving no facility for trumping up false charges. This sub-section, as had been pointed out, was nothing but the re-enactment of the 49th section of 24 & 25 Vict., except in regard to the limit of age. The clause, as it stood, contained a Proviso in Sub-sections 2 and 3, which took away the benefits of the old Statute of 24 & 25 Vict. as to age. Therefore, in extending the limit of age it was desirable, on various grounds, to prevent, as far as possible, the possibility of false charges being made. Under the words "false representations or other fraudulent means," if a designing woman were prepared to say "the man promised to give me 20s. and only gave me 10s.; and that was all he had to give me," that would be a false representation. It was necessary for the Committee to see that they had to steer their course between two difficulties; and he would ask the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill, inasmuch as he understood the right hon. Gentleman intended to move to strike out the Proviso in Sub-sections 2 and 3, if it would not meet the difficulty, to some extent, by saying that those two sub-sections should not apply to women of known immoral character? [Sir R. ASSHETON CROSS replied in the affirmative.] If that were so, the man would be protected from any false charge made by a woman of known immoral character. He did not know that that would meet the difficulty altogether; but he thought it would meet the danger of those false charges being made.

said, he was glad to hear from the late Attorney General the suggestion that the Committee should, to some extent, modify what might be a dangerous course in the matter. He certainly objected to repeal old Statutes in order to put them into new ones. The Act of 24 & 25 Vict., c. 100, was an Act to consolidate the Statute Law of England and Ireland relating to acts against the person. It was proposed to repeal the 49th section of that Act, and supplement the Code by inserting the present clause in the Bill; but he did not see why they should take a section out of that Statute, repeal it, and then put it into another Statute. So far as false pretences was concerned, he saw no reason why there should be any limitation of age. A man might just as reasonably impose upon a woman of 30 as upon a girl of 15; but the difficulty was in rendering a young man liable to two years' imprisonment if he coerced a woman of 30, who was certainly not likely to be overawed by any menace or representation a youth might make. The result might be that a woman who willingly gave herself to the embraces of a man might afterwards come forward and say that she had done so in consequence of having been intimidated. Of course, there would not be much danger in the case of women of known immoral character; but the danger would arise in dealing with women whose previous immorality could not be proved.

remarked, that the words "false representations, false pretences, and other fraudulent means," were taken from the Act of 1860, and they were perfectly well understood. He did not understand, for a moment, that the case which had been suggested by the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere) of offering a particular sum of money, and then paying less, would afford any ground for an indictment under this section. He therefore failed to see what practical object would be attained by adopting the suggestion of the late Attorney General (Sir Henry James).

was of opinion that something should be done to prevent extortion on the part of persons of immoral character. He was, therefore, of opinion that the clause should give protection to all whom it was desirable to protect within the scope of the Bill. If a man had connection with a woman under a promise of marrying her, and it turned out afterwards that he was married, was that to be considered a fraudulent pretence?

wished to know if the late Attorney General intended to move the Amendment he had suggested? They were told by the present Attorney General that the words "fraudulent means" could not in any sense apply to the offering of a certain sum to a woman, and then not giving it to her. As a layman, he (Mr. Labouchere) was certainly not acquainted with the refinements of the law; but he understood that that was exactly the reverse of the view which had been expressed by the present Attorney General. He was afraid that a great deal of black mail might be levied unless the proposal of the right hon. and learned Member for Taunton (Sir Henry James) were accepted, and he hoped the Committee would divide upon it.

said, he had an Amendment on the Paper in the next line of this sub-section to insert after "girl" the words—

"Not being a common prostitute or person of known immoral character."

He proposed to insert those words for the reason given by the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere) and the late Attorney General. The Amendment would deal with the case of a man who, accosting a prostitute who had no wish to have anything to say to him, succeeded in overcoming her scruples by offering her £5, and then only gave her £1. He was afraid that by the clause as it stood that might be held to be false pretences.

said, he could not accept the Amendment. In the first instance, the effect would be to alter Section 49 of the Act 24 & 25 Vict., and, therefore, to change the existing law. Why should a woman—even although she was a woman of loose character—be subjected to intimidation and violence against her will? The existing law protected her, and he saw no reason why the law should be altered.

said, he understood the object of the present Bill was to prevent defilement, which was entirely opposed to the notion of dealing with common women in any sense. He thought the fault rested with the words in the clause, which were not altogether applicable to the offence the clause was intended to deal with. The terms—

"False pretences, false representations, or other fraudulent means,"

were very wide, and would afford an opportunity to women to trump up cases. In cases of breach of promise, in future the woman would only have to bring forward a charge of this kind to enable her counsel to ask for very substantial damages, and to suggest that this measure had been placed at the woman's disposal for that very purpose. The law with regard to "fraudulent devices" had never yet been judicially expounded, and no lawyer he had ever met with could give an instance of a case in which the old Act had been put in force.

said, he had suggested that Sub-sections 2 and 3 should not apply to women of immoral character. They were not dealing now with threats and intimidation only, but also with false representations, false pretences, and other fraudulent means, which might mean not representing falsely a fact, but something that was to come hereafter. What was it that the Committee were engaged in doing? They were aiming the Bill indirectly at prostitution; and if they did not accept these words they were favouring prosti- tution. He did not see why a prostitute should not be protected by law in regard to such rights as she had; but by employing the words "false representations" they were going beyond the law, and might drive a man into a police court and ruin his future prospects for life unnecessarily. The present law did not go beyond the protection of women under 21 years of age; but they were now extending this protection to a much larger class of women, and were giving them an opportunity of making false charges for purposes of extortion. He really felt that this was a matter which ought to be carefully considered, and he would ask the Government to allow an Amendment to be brought up in a different form on the Report.

strongly objected to so much being left over for Report. There was yet ample time for arguing the matter. He appealed to the Home Secretary to retain the clause without the addition now proposed.

said, the clause as it stood would not carry out the views of the hon. Member for Hackney (Mr. Stuart); and he thought they might extend the protection even beyond what the right hon. and learned Member for Taunton (Sir Henry James) suggested. The right hon. and learned Gentleman instanced the case of a man who promised £1 and only gave 10s. A man in such a case as that ought certainly to be protected against being prosecuted for procuring the commission of an unlawful act under false pretences. Were they going to protect any woman who sold herself for money, and who did not happen to belong to that class of women known as prostitutes? Take the case of a woman who sold herself for £100, and only received £50. Was that the class of woman, whether she was of known immoral character or not, that they wished to protect? His opinion was that they only desired to protect virtue and morality, and they ought to define fraudulent means so as to exclude all cases of the promise of money. It would not be sufficient to confine the matter simply to street walkers; no woman who sold herself for a promise of money should be able to take advantage of this clause in the event of the man not paying her as much as she expected. He would suggest to the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill that he should put in the Interpretation Clause some Proviso limiting the words "fraudulent means," and excluding all cases in which a promise of money or reward of any kind was made.

said, he would not press the Amendment; but he wished to ask the Government if they would bring up on the Report, or move now, a Proviso to the sub-section to this effect—

"That the sub-section should not apply to any woman or girl being a common prostitute, or a person of known immoral character."

said, he proposed to agree to the insertion of some such words.

said, that that course having been taken, he proposed to move the omission of the 4th subsection, which read as follows:—

"(4.) Induces a girl under the age of twenty-one years, with intent that she shall have unlawful carnal connection with himself or any other man, to enter a brothel, she not knowing the same to be a brothel nor being a party to the intent."

said, the right hon. Gentleman had omitted to notice that he had placed an Amendment on the Paper for the insertion of a sub-section after the 1st sub-section to include any person who

"Procures, or endeavours to procure, any woman or girl, not being a common prostitute, when under the influence of any intoxicating liquor, opiate, or narcotic, to have unlawful carnal connection with himself or any other man."

In framing that Amendment he had certainly entertained some doubt whether the offence he proposed to deal with did not really amount to rape. In that case it might not be properly dealt with by a new Proviso which reduced the offence to one of misdemeanour. He was, however, encouraged to persevere with his Amendment, because he saw that there were two Amendments on the Paper to a similar effect in the name of the hon. and learned Member for Dewsbury (Mr. Serjeant Simon), and the Home Secretary also proposed to deal with it himself. He believed that it was an offence to administer drugs; but it was not an offence to have improper connection with a woman when she was under the influence of the drug. He, therefore, thought that the Bill would be improved by that being made a distinct offence.

opposed the Amendment.

proposed the omission of Sub-section 4, on the ground that it amounted to a fraud which had already been dealt with.

remarked that he had an Amendment on this sub-section, and if it were omitted it would be necessary that he should move his Amendment in the form of a new sub-section.

said, he thought the Committee were entitled to some explanation of the necessity of this sub-section. It was asserted that in this country it was possible to do these things, and that the law could not touch the offender. He maintained that the offence was touched by the existing law in various ways. In the first place, if anybody were to get possession of a woman by means of administering a stupefying or overpowering drug, the woman being reduced thereby to a state of insensibility, or wanting the power to express her will in regard to the act, it was rape. Then, in addition to that, there was an Act of Parliament in existence which declared that any person who administered chloroform, or a drug or opiate, or any other matter or thing to anybody with the intent to commit a felony, was guilty of a felony, and was already punishable by law. There were a good many mystifications in the Bill throughout, and there were repetitions of a good deal that was already law. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would give some good reason why it was necessary to insert this sub-section. The word "intent" was precisely the same as the word "attempt" in the Criminal Law. If a man gave a woman a glass of grog, or a pinch of snuff, or anything else with the intention to commit a rape, he maintained that that was an attempt to commit a felonious act, and was already dealt with by the law. He asked the right hon. Gentleman, therefore, to say what reason he had for believing that these cases were not already sufficiently dealt with by the existing law.

said, the real question with regard to this Amendment of his right hon. Friend the Home Secretary was whether or not it went beyond the existing law. They were all of one mind—that it was undesirable to include in the Bill a number of superfluous provisions; but it would appear, from Mr. Justice Stephen's Digest of Law, that the law, as it stood, dealt with cases where there was an intent to assist or enable any other person to commit an indictable offence, or an attempt to render any person insensible or unconscious by administering any overpowering drug. As the law now stood, that applied only to persons who assisted another to commit an indictable offence; and, so far as rape was concerned, that was a case which was also dealt with. The Amendment, however, of his right hon. Friend the Home Secretary went further. In the first place, there was no limit of age; and, in the next place, it made it a misdemeanour for any person to administer to any woman or girl any stupefying or overpowering drug with the intent to enable any other person to have unlawful connection with such woman or girl. There were cases which might not amount to a rape; and if something were done by a third person, or by anybody in connection with a third person, which led to the commission of an offence, he maintained that it was a matter which ought to be brought within the Criminal Law. He quite recognized, with his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Stockport (Mr. Hopwood), that the existing law dealt with these offences to a certain extent; but it did not go as far as his right hon. Friend proposed to go.

said, he was not satisfied that this Amendment would meet the whole of the case. The Act of 1860 went much further than the proposed Amendment, and was much more comprehensive; but even the provisions of that Act did not, to his mind, grapple with all the difficulties of the case.

remarked that that Act was not repealed.

said, that, as he read the Amendment, it provided for the punishment of the person who administered a drug, but not for the person who committed the offence of violating the woman who was the victim of the drug. It might be that connection with a woman under the influence of a drug would be held to be rape; but there might also be degrees of unconsciousness produced by the administration of a drug which would not be held to be rape. He would instance the case of a half-drunken woman, neither drunk nor sober, to whom improper overtures were made, and followed up by the commission of an unlawful act. That would not be held to be rape, and yet a morally criminal offence would have been committed. The Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman would not meet that case. It did not punish a man who profited by the administration of the drug, but only the man who administered it. He should be glad if, by any alteration in the wording of the sub-section, the case he had pointed out could be met; because he certainly thought that, as it was at present drawn, it would have very little effect, and he should be glad to see it made quite perfect.

said, that his objection to the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman was that it did not cover every case. For instance, it left out the administration of intoxicating drinks.

said, there was one observation which, had fallen from the Attorney General which he thought was worthy of consideration. His hon. and learned Friend pointed to the fact that by the Amendment it must be a stupefying or overpowering drug. He thought the words "stupefying or overpowering" restricted the operation of the clause, and that the word "drug" alone would be quite sufficient. There was another observation which he wished to make with regard to the clause as it stood at present. He wished to know if it was to apply to any person, or to any man?

Any person.

disagreed with his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Horace Davey), and thought that there should be words inserted in the clause to show that the offence was to stupefy or overpower. Otherwise a man might take a woman into a public-house and give her a glass of sherry, and she might turn round upon him and accuse him of having given it to her with an unlawful intent. Unless the Committee carefully guarded these words, so as to show that it was a deliberate attempt to stupefy and overpower the will of the woman for an unlawful purpose, there was a danger that it might be used for purposes of extortion.

suggested that it would be better to include "liquor" with "drug." The words of the Amendment would not cover all the cases which were contemplated. Nobody could say of intoxicating liquor that it was a stupefying or overpowering drug. If it were taken in excess, it might become overpowering and stupefying; but its nature was not, as was that of some drugs, to be overpowering. He thought it would be necessary to introduce some words to cover intoxicating drinks.

said, he had understood, from what the hon. and learned Attorney General said, that the clause would cover the administration of ordinary intoxicating liquors, if they were administered with an unlawful intent.

said, his point was that the words "stupefying or over- powering drug, matter, or thing" implied that those drugs, matters, or things were in their very nature stupefying or overpowering. Now, everyone knew that that was not the case with intoxicants, because taken to a moderate extent they did not overpower or stupefy, but, on the contrary, they stimulated. Let the Committee remember what followed. It was always understood that the drug, matter, or thing, was administered with intent, &c. He therefore put it before the Committee that whenever intoxicating liquor should be administered to a woman or girl with that intent, the person who so administered it ought to bear the punishment provided by the clause. He should, therefore, move an Amendment to the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman (Sir E. Assheton Cross) which would meet the case of administering intoxicating liquors.

said, if the Amendment proposed by the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Stansfeld) were adopted, the giving of one glass of sherry would be sufficient. He agreed with the right hon. Gentleman to the extent that the thing need not be in its nature stupefying or overpowering, but that it should be so in its effect. But that he denied was the meaning of the words as they stood. They might put in "any drug, matter, or thing to the extent of stupefying or overpowering," or words that would mean that the thing must be given to the extent that would produce stupefaction or overpowering.

suggested that the words "to an extent which causes any woman or girl to become intoxicated" should be added.

said, he thought the more sensible course would be to take the words suggested by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby (Sir William Harcourt), and say "any drug, matter, or thing so as to stupefy or overpower."

said, he understood that the proposal was to withdraw the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Halifax (Mr. Stansfeld), in order to insert the words suggested by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby (Sir William Harcourt). He pointed out that those words would only apply where something had been given or administered to an extent that caused the subject to be overpowered or stupefied. So that, however wicked the intention might be, unless the thing were administered in a sufficient quantity to produce that effect the person who administered it would not come within the reach of the clause. That, he said, was reducing the clause to a nullity. What they wanted to do was to prevent the administration to any woman or girl of anything which would so derange her reasoning power as to make her become the victim of the person who administered it. He would suggest that before the words "stupefy or overpower" they should insert the words "with the intent to." That would place the meaning of the clause in a clear light, whereas he thought that the wording recommended by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby would leave the matter so vague that the application of this portion of the Act would be made impracticable.

said, he ventured to think that the hon. Member for Liskeard (Mr. Courtney) had suggested the proper way of dealing with this matter, by proposing words which would make it clear that the intention to stupefy or overpower, and so on, would be punished by the clause.

said, he would ask for an explanation of the term "unlawfully" used in this clause.

said, it had been customary to describe the offence dealt with by the clause in that way. The word "unlawfully" was used in old indictments. There might have been, but he did not think that any special meaning was, attached to the word. He would point out to the Committee that the whole section was simply an expression of the law as it now existed. The clause had been paraded in some of the newspapers as if it were the introduction of now law; but it was nothing of the kind—it was simply a re-enactment of existing law.

said, he did not think the existing law was strong enough on the point of age; and he rose to move that the word "twelve," in line 25, be omitted, and "thirteen" substituted. He observed that his hon. and learned Friend opposite (Mr. Serjeant Simon) had proposed to make the limit of age in this case 14 years; but he preferred his own Amendment for these reasons. He thought, on consideration of this matter, that they could not altogether eliminate the question of consent. Now, consent might be given by a gild of tender age from several motives; in the first place, it might be given because presents were offered to her, and, to some extent, because the girl did not actually know what would happen. It was obvious that the consent he had alluded to could not be held to be an excuse. But consent might be due also to natural causes, and in that case, although it would not constitute an excuse, it might be held to be something in the nature of extenuation. Up to the age of 13, which he proposed to insert in the clause, he did not think it possible that the natural cause could operate to the extent of justifying the term "consent" being applied. Therefore, for the reasons he had given, he thought the clause in respect of age did not go far enough; and, on the other hand, he considered that the Amendment of his hon. and learned Friend opposite (Mr. Serjeant Simon) went a little too far. In order to place this matter on a reasonable basis, he commended the Amendment standing in his own name to the favourable consideration of the Committee and Her Majesty's Government.

said, he had an Amendment to move which would substitute 14, as the age of the girl, for that named in the clause. This was no question of creating a new offence—it was simply a question of punishment. He would not go into the question of passion, which had been raised by the hon. and gallant Member for Devonport (Captain Price). But he would point out that there was this distinction between the felony and misdemeanour—that in the former the female was immature, both in body and mind, and the man guilty of it must be of brutal nature. He believed, even at the age of 15, a girl was not always able to understand the consequences, because she was deficient in mind; and the same reason applied in a stronger degree to the age of 14. Although there were some females prematurely developed, yet it was no uncommon thing for development to be deferred to between the ages of 15 and 16. But at the age of 14 the girl was but a child, and he said that at that age there was neither knowledge nor passion; if there were, it was the result of unusual precocity. It was true that the conditions of life in which a large proportion of the population was placed brought young girls into contact with vice, and gave them experiences to which women of 20 in a higher class of society were strangers. So far as mental development, vice, and vicious practices were concerned, it was very well authenticated that many young girls under 12 were exposed to example and habits of the most vicious kind. But that being so, let it not be said that if a girl of 14 knew what she was about, a girl of 10 or less knew equally well. He said that they must go beyond the particular-cases mentioned. He asked any hon. Member who heard him now whether, in his heart and conscience, a girl of 14 was not in respect of sensual passion a mere child, as she was not sufficiently mature in body or mind to apprehend such matters? It was not necessary for him to say that the savage who debauched a girl of that age was undeserving of any sympathy whatever, and no argument should induce them to look on him as guilty of an of- fence of only a venial kind—he was corrupt in heart and mind; he had committed rape, and should be dealt with by law. It had been said that there was no distinction between the ages of 12, 14, and 16. He contended that if a girl was to be protected at all, it meant that she was incapable of knowing the meaning and consequence of what was done—that was why she ought to be protected, and why the man ought to be severely punished. In the case he had put of a girl of 14 years of age, he thought the cruelty and moral viciousness of the act ought to be punished with the severest penalty which the law could inflict. He should therefore move that "fourteen" be substituted for "thirteen."

said, the hon. and learned Gentleman would not be in Order in moving that Amendment, because it would have the effect of altogether nullifying the Motion of the hon. and gallant Member for Devonport (Captain Price). The way to meet the Amendment of the hon. and gallant Member was to divide against it.

said, in that case he would appeal to the hon. and gallant Member to withdraw his Amendment.

said, in reply to the appeal of the hon. and learned Gentleman, he could only state that if his own Amendment were not passed, he should be glad to vote for the Amendment which the hon. and learned Member proposed to move.

said, he thought that, on the whole, they might safely take the age of 13 which stood in the clause. No doubt the age of 12 was the age recognized by the existing law, and what governed it was very much this—that it was the law of marriage in England that a boy of 14 could marry any girl of 12 years of age. The law was remarkable in that respect, because at the age of 12 binding consent could be given. If the boy were under 14, and the girl under 12, it would not be valid. Either of them on becoming of age might disagree, and the marriage might be declared void. That, he said, disposed of the question that had been raised as to the meaning of the word "unlawfully" used at the beginning of the clause. They must have that in the Act, because there was no limit of age in marriage—that was to say, if the boy and girl did not disagree the marriage would be binding. No doubt there was great difficulty in dealing with these matters, because they were dealing with ages which were recognized in the marriage law of the country. He thought the age should be taken at which a man must himself know what would be clear at the age of 12, but doubtful at the age of 13. To judge of age correctly was a matter of difficulty. When asked the other day as to the age of a girl, he found that he was wrong by two years in the judgment he formed. His opinion was that in these matters they ought not to carry the thing to an extreme; and he thought in this case they would be taking a sensible step in the direction they wished to go if they fixed the age at 13 instead of 12.

said, no doubt the reason why the age of 12 was the law of England in regard to the crime dealt with in this clause was because of the law of marriage, as stated by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby, and he thought they ought to be very careful in extending it. He was not unwilling to go as far as the age of 13, because a child at that age was certainly not able to have full knowledge; and, on the other hand, it must be known to anyone dealing with her that she was a child. But at 14 years of age the case was very different, and he did not think it safe to go as far as that. There did not appear to him that anything was to be gained by dwelling on this subject at great length, and he hoped the Committee would think with him that a decision should be come to with regard to it as soon as possible. It should be remembered that this clause was making the act felony, and that when the age of 12 or 13 was settled there was still the offence of misdemeanour to fall back upon.

said, he did not understand why they should be asked to alter the existing law. No one had shown that it was insufficient. Where were the cases between 12 and 13 years of age that had not been properly punished? He did not think that any pressing necessity had been shown for the change; certainly he thought there was none, and he believed he knew as I much about the law on this subject as anyone. But someone had cried out for severity, and it was replied—"Yes. We cannot give you the whole; but we will give you the half." Hon. Gentlemen opposite spoke of the debauching of girls; but he pointed out that this section contemplated something different. The course hitherto followed in these matters was to have gradations in the law. Between the ages of 10 and 12 the offence was a misdemeanour; but, taking the law as it existed at the present time, up to 12 it was a felony. What was the argument of the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Serjeant Simon)? Why, he said, without authority, that no girl was ever mature, or anything like it, at the age of 12 or 13 years. He (Mr. Hopwood) could only contradict him with the personal observation that he himself had made. He saw many young women that he believed were not older than 13, or who, at all events, were debauched as early as 13. He supposed it was not intended that an extra punishment should be inflicted in a case of this sort—because a girl of bad character with whom a person had immoral relations happened to be a year older than the age fixed at present for the protection of young females. His hon. and learned Friend on his right (Mr. Serjeant Simon) contended that such girls were immature, and that it was impossible to suppose that such children felt passion. Why, all the evidence before them contradicted that. In evidence before the House of Lords it was stated by the chaplain of a gaol that in many cases children began a life of immorality at the early age of seven or eight years. Let them imagine the careers of those girls from the age of seven or eight to the age of 12, and remember that they were now called on, without necessity for it being shown, to attach a special punishment and a special infamy to this class of offence if the subject of it was only one year older than 12. Those who came to this subject for the first time attached enormous importance to the words, writ large, "punishment by imprisonment" staring them in the face, for this breach of the moral law. He did not. He believed that after this law was passed it would have no more effect than the old law—unless, in some few cases, it had the effect of bringing about an increase of punishment. They must remember that in all these cases the Judge would have the power of giving a small amount of punishment. The Amendment was illusory, then. What was the use of raising the point? It could only be for the sake of identifying the offence with the name which, in the olden time, was supposed to strike terror into the hearts of their forefathers'—namely, "felony." They knew that a great deal of that terror had been wisely diminished, and that there was now very little difference between felony and misdemeanour. Though there might be a difference, it was a very fine one; and it seemed to him they ought not to make the change for mere change's sake.

said, the section before them was for the purpose of protecting young girls, and if they did not protect them he failed to see what object they could have in view. If any hon. Gentleman knew girls of 14 who seemed to be marriageable their experience did not accord with his. No doubt there were cases amongst the lower classes whore girls married at 14; but they were very few. He remembered seeing a boy of 16 who was 6 feet 2 inches high; but that was not a common occurrence. It seemed to him that their Common Law as to the period when boys and girls were marriageable was founded on the Roman Law. Well, the Romans lived in a much more Southern latitude than we, and their children—as was the case with the children of the South of France, Spain, and Italy at the present time—were much more precocious than our children. However, if he had a preference, it was for the Amendment of the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Devonport (Captain Price), who proposed the age of 13. It seemed to him that that age would give much greater security. It was said that the age of puberty was between 13 and 15. The average between those ages was 14; but to avoid being unable, in many cases, to tell the difference between 13 and 14, he thought it would be wise to adopt the younger age—namely, 13.

said, the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Stockport (Mr. Hopwood) spoke about the public calling for greater severity. Well, he believed that was precisely what the people were calling for, and he believed that the large majority of the public would sympathize with the proposal to adopt the age of 14. He (Mr. Morley) could, however, only speak for himself; and if the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Dewsbury (Mr. Serjeant Simon) pressed the matter to a division he should support him.

said, he wished to move an addition to the clause to place offences under the clause in the category of offences dealt with under the 26 & 27 Vict. c. 44, entitled—"An Act for the further securing of the persons of Her Majesty's subjects from personal violence." Under that Act, if any person committed a robbery and accompanied it with personal violence he was liable, at the discretion of the Court, to have the punishment of flogging inflicted on him; and what he (Mr. Fowler) was asking the Committee to do was to place the offence of rape on a little girl in the same category as robbery with personal violence. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Stockport (Mr. Hopwood), when he made his powerful speech on the first night of this debate, had made a special reference to him (Mr. Fowler) in regard to this clause, and had seemed to think it an inconsistent and improper course in him to move it. The hon. and learned Gentleman had given, by anticipation, two reasons against the clause, one with reference to a special case which he had quoted, where great injustice had been done to a reverend gentleman named Hatch; and the other in general illustration of the administration of the law. He should like to point out to the Committee, as to the evidence of girls of tender age, and the evidence on which this punishment of flogging might be inflicted, that the case of Mr. Hatch would not be brought within this clause, and was no precedent. That was a case of indecently assaulting young girls; but the cases he was proposing to deal with were not cases of indecent assault, but cases in which the complete offence wag committed—cases of felony; and, of course, no conviction would be obtained of such cases, except on medical proof that the crime had been committed. With regard to the argument of the hon. and learned Gentleman that innocent persons might be subjected to this punishment, that was an argument against all Criminal Law whatever. Innocent persons had, to the sorrow of all right-minded people, been convicted again and again. They had been sentenced to imprisonment, and had sometimes even lost their lives. But the remedy for that, if it were owing, in any way, to the unsatisfactory state of their law, was not the relaxation of punishment for gross crimes, but rather the establishment of a Court of Criminal Appeal, which he thought was a necessary reform in their Criminal Law. What he wanted to impress upon the Committee was that the character of this offence was so horrible, and the injury done to the victims of it so great, and the degraded character of the man who committed it so revolting, that no punishment could be too severe for him, and that, in the interests of society, any punishment that would best deter from the commission of the crime was a punishment they ought to adopt. The hon. and learned. Gentleman (Mr. Hopwood) had drawn a very powerful picture of a man suffering this punishment; but the hon. and learned Member had drawn the picture on too broad lines, and the record which they had of the infliction of this punishment, subject to the restrictions of the Act of Parliament that he had referred to, would not justify that picture. The injury done to little children by this off once was an injury for life, and one that it was impossible to estimate the consequences of; and, unfortunately, the crime and injury were those to which the children of the working classes were especially subjected. The children of the rich were protected, to a great extent. There were servants constantly looking after them; but the children of the poor were constantly at the mercy of the public, and it was the duty of the public, so far as they could, to protect them from these offences. During the Assizes at Stafford, which were taking place that week, there had been one or two most horrible cases of outraging little children—one of these being a case in which a stepfather took advantage of his position to outrage the child of his wife under circumstances of most disgusting brutality. Now, he had no compassion or pity for such scoundrels. He should like to see them flogged. He thought flogging would not only be the proper punishment for the offence, but would have a great deterrent effect on the crime; and in this matter he was not going altogether on his own opinion. He would not rest the matter on his own opinion—he would give them one or two high authorities. In the first place, take the opinion of a well-known Judge, a person no one could charge with being a sentimental Judge, but one of the strongest Judges who had ever sat on the English Bench, and who had had, perhaps, a larger experience in the administration of the Criminal Law than anyone else—namely, Lord Bramwell. What did he say? Why—

"If their Lordships only knew, as well as he did, who the persons were who committed these offences, they would find that, in all probability, the anticipation of a flogging would have a far greater deterring influence upon such persons than anything else; and particularly upon those who committed it on defenceless children under the influence of a detestable superstition."—(3 Hansard, [280] 1387.)

The Earl of Shaftesbury, in the same debate, said—

"He had put the question to a number of the criminal classes, and he found that they preferred months of imprisonment to one flogging," and that he "he believed flogging would have a more deterrent effect than any other punishment."—(Ibid.)

The Amendment had been accepted by the House of Lords without a division. Then, the present law inflicting the punishment of flogging for robbery with personal violence had never been complained of as in any way working unjustly or unfairly. The Judges ordered that punishment according to their discretion; but it was never ordered except in cases of robbery and violence of great atrocity. That punishment, he was satisfied, would meet with the concurrence of the public opinion of the country. If it had been abhorrent to it in the case of crimes of robbery with violence, it would have been long since swept out of the Statute Book. He would call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary to a still higher authority than any he had quoted yet, and one which, he thought, would have weight with the right hon. Gentleman, and which ought to have weight with his Colleagues. He was about to quote from the Prime Minister—and he could not put the arguments for the clause more tersely or more unanswerably than the Marquess of Salisbury had put them when this clause was passed by the House of Lords. What did he say? Why that—

"He deeply regretted that Her Majesty's Government could not accept the Amendment."

The Government had declined to accept it on the ground, principally, that they would have some difficulty in passing it through this House; but they afterwards withdrew from that position—

"He should like to know the reason why. The offence was one of the most horrible that could be conceived, the most defenceless girls of the community were especially exposed to it, and a widely-spread superstition made it far commoner than it would be. The men who committed it were unable to foresee what was involved in penal servitude for life; but they understood the pain arising from corporal punishment. If ever corporal punishment was a just instrument to be placed in the hands of the law-giver, for the purpose of repressing odious crimes, it was in the present case. Therefore, if the Amendment were pressed to a division he should vote for it."—(3 Hansard, [280] 1386.)

He (Mr. Fowler) appealed to the Government not to run away from the decision and the action of the Prime Minister on this matter; and on the lines and arguments with which the noble Marquess had advocated this most desirable change in the law he would ask the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary to consent to the introduction of these words.

said, he regretted that he was not in the House when his Amendment was reached to leave out the words "for life, or for any term not less than five years." He warned the Committee, in registering its decision against persons guilty of the offence named in the clause, not to lose sight of cases where numbers of children herded together in one room, and young boys might become guilty. He thought that to pass a clause requiring a sentence of penal servitude for life, or for a minimum period of five years, regardless of the tender ago of a prisoner, would be a mistake. In the case of boys, whipping was the proper punishment, and nothing but it.

I rise to Order. I think the point the hon. Member is dealing with has been settled.

said, he was only speaking on the clause generally. If the clause passed as it now stood, children would be liable to be sent to penal servitude, and he asked that children under 14 should be punished with nothing but whipping—certainly not with penal servitude.

said, the hon. Gentleman was a little late in his proposal. It would, he thought, be wise to accept the Amendment of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton. The punishment of flogging, they might rely upon it, would never be inflicted unless it were well deserved.

said, he did not know that the Prime Minister had any more experience in this matter of the prevention of crime than a great many hon. Members; therefore, however powerful might have been the language employed by him in expressing his views, and however well worthy the speech might have been of hearing, or was now worthy of reading, too much weight should not be attached to it. He (Mr. Hopwood) opposed the Amendment, believing that if they wanted to suppress crimes, increasing the severity of punishment was not the best way to do it. They knew the heavy punishments their forefathers had attached to a great many crimes, and how little they succeeded in that way in suppressing them. They knew how often verdicts of "not guilty" were returned because of the extreme severity of the punishments which would follow convictions, and every tyro in the science of law knew how little effect extreme penalties had exercised on the criminal classes, even where the inducement was so little as stealing 1s. in a dwelling house, and a multitude of similar offences. Some of those offences were so small that it would have been thought that whipping would prove a sufficient deterrent, and yet, as a matter of fact, even death had not been. He would remind his hon. Friend that in the olden time whipping had been a punishment for stealing. It was only superseded some 40 or 50 years ago by the introduction of the House of Correction system, which was introduced by those who were philanthropists, and not only by them, but by those who were convinced that this whipping business was a mistake, and really injured those who inflicted it. It injured those who heard the sentence given; it injured the Judges who gave it; and reduced the feelings of mankind to a lower level of sensibility. That was the only ground on which they could try to convince or impress those who were advocates of this brutal system. Those who were now in power must be brought to understand what the objection was to this punishment. They must be taught that there was something debasing about torture punishments not only on the men on whom they were administered, but on society, which was conniving at, or was accessory to, the punishments. The enormity of the offence was spoken of. He granted it. They pictured a child and a grown man, who was old enough to know better, and they were shocked at the baseness of the act. But his contention was that they were not to fix their eyes alone upon the offence as being so enormous that they must punish it in this way. They must look to see what was the object of punishment, and how punishment operated. For his own part, he was bound to say he had little belief generally in laws of this kind. He admitted that in their society it was necessary to have laws; but he believed that, with regard to crime in the country, they might go on the dead level of averages. The same crop came up at the Assizes, the same crop at the Sessions, probably, of late years with a few diminutions—diminutions which had begun to be marked, and which he hoped might go on—but all this improvement was entirely irrespective of the question of the punishment they inflicted. To operate upon the community by social regeneration, they must repress all brutalizing influences. Public opinion was anxious for the re- pression of these influences, and that a section of the public were crying out just now for the enactment of these cruel punishments was, he thought, attributable rather to inexperience of such matters than to a thirst after reprisals and revenge against those they thought or felt had inflicted on them an irreparable injury. He wondered his hon. Friend had not said that this punishment of flogging had put down garotting. The House had dealt with garotting by adopting this punishment. When one of its Members was stricken down and robbed the House ran into a panic, just as it had done now, and had declared that it must have whipping and flogging. A horrible, selfish feeling was aroused in the House, and it passed an Act to legalize this punishment. The Minister of the day—Sir George Grey—did his best to resist it; but the House passed it over his head. That was the measure they were asked to admire—a measure which was opposed by, probably, one of the most intellectual men in the House, and opposed by him because he was doing his duty. That was the punishment they were now called on to add to. What had happened? Why, the Act was passed; but before it came into operation, a number of men—the specialists, he might call them—were arrested, and were tried and sentenced. Those facts had been related in that House 20 times by his hon. Friend the late Member for Leicester (Mr. P. A. Taylor); but the same thing went on, the same ignorance was shown. "Oh! it put down garotting!" it was said. It did nothing of the kind, as could be shown on irrefutable evidence. The Bill was passed; it was to come into force in the following November. The men who composed this gang, and who, by the way, had been taught this garotting by a prison warder, who put on the hug, as he called it, on board one of Her Majesty's convict ships, when he wished to reduce refractory convicts to submission, showing how severity of punishment and cruelty on the part of the representatives of the law re-acted to the injury of society—this gang was arrested in London, and tried by that very Lord Bramwell whom the hon. Gentleman (Mr. H. H. Fowler) had referred to, at the Old Bailey, and; punished under the then existing law. They were condemned and sentenced to long terms of penal servitude; but there was not a flogging given amongst them; and Mr. Russell Gurney, the Recorder, when he met the Grand Jury the following month, was able to congratulate them on the punishment of the garotters and the cessation of the crime of garotting. Nothing in the form of garotting—of that scientific form of garotting—had occurred since. They had robberies with violence which were sometimes treated with this punishment, but their number had not diminished. The hon. Gentleman (Mr. H. H. Fowler) had referred to some of the Judges. Well, a good many others, as the hon. Member was aware, had expressed their opinion against it, and had always refused to adopt it. Lord Bramwell was quoted, but many of his Lordship's learned brethren and friends took a very different view of this subject to that which he himself took. No doubt Lord Bramwell was very thorough in all he did—and it might be at times a little stern and a little severe—but they were not called upon to support him in all he did and in all he thought. He (Mr. Hopwood) preferred to call into court the right hon. Gentleman the present Home Secretary, who had probably had more experience in connection with matters of this kind than any man living. His hon. Friend on the Front Opposition Bench (Mr. H. H. Fowler) did not remember that the right hon. Gentleman (Sir R. Assheton Cross), when he came into power in 1874, was called on, by a strong expression of opinion behind the Ministerial Bench, and perhaps on the Opposition side of the House, to apply flogging as a punishment in cases of violent offences, among others of brutality on the part of husbands towards their wives. The right hon. Gentleman thereupon, in his position as Secretary of State, gathered the opinions of all manner of Judges and all manner of Chairmen of Quarter Sessions. The right hon. Gentleman would, he thought, agree with him that the majority were in favour of the punishment. It was very amusing to notice that the Scotch Judges, who, avowing that they had no experience in the matter, declared in favour of the punishment of flogging, saying they had no doubt it was an excellent practice. What had the right hon. Gentleman done when he came to dissect all the evidence and consider what course was to be taken in the matter? Why, he came to the conclusion that it would be unwise—he (Mr. Hopwood) submitted that the right hon. Gentleman did, for his acts showed it—to go back upon their legislation in the matter; that it would be a retrograde course; and that the result would be ineffective, and injurious to the public interest. The right hon. Gentleman had declined to take the course suggested to him, and dropped the Bill which he had brought in. The result of the right hon. Gentleman's inquiry was to be found in a large Blue Book. It comprehended the opinions of an immense number of persons competent to say what they thought; but it had remained undusted on the shelves of the Home Office from that day to this. The country had been freed from this barbarous importation into its Criminal Code. He (Mr. Hopwood) resisted—he should resist to the utmost—every such effort to brutalize the law, for if fitting torture was to be inserted in the Bill they would have to resort to the cognate or correlative tortures of ancient days which were applied to these offences. He objected to torture of every sort, and he especially objected to it in cases where, as his hon. Friend said, "there was no danger, because you always have medical testimony to prove whether the offence has been committed or not." He (Mr. Hopwood) did not think so much of medical evidence in these matters. The important question always was—"Is that the man who did it?" not whether the thing was done. They might have a man convicted on the evidence of two children—or of one, the other not being old enough to give sworn testimony—and sentenced; and afterwards it might turn out that he was not guilty. In the meantime, before his innocence was established to the satisfaction of everyone, the unfortunate man would have his back flogged and scarred and indented to gratify this notion of strengthening the Criminal Law. He thought the Committee would act wisely in rejecting the clause.

said, he hoped that when the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Stockport (Mr. Hopwood) was seated on the Judicial Bench—as he trusted, before many years, he would be—that he would find this Amendment of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler) on the Statute Book; and he was quite sure that, whatever present Judges might think of the punishment of flogging in cases of garotting, and whatever construction might be put upon it, the hon. and learned Gentleman, on finding persons guilty of this abominable offence, would order flogging to be inflicted on the criminals. The hon. and learned Gentleman had said that years ago the punishment of death had been inflicted for very small offences. That might have been the case—no doubt, it was the case; but this was not a small offence that they were now discussing. When the hon. and learned Gentleman said that flogging was not a deterrent in cases of garotting he would ask him could be suggest himself any greater deterrent than flogging in a case like this? Flogging, however, had been a deterrent in the case of garotting, and he was certain that persons who might be guilty of an offence of this nature would think once, and twice, and thrice before they committed the offence if they believed they would have their backs scored, even in the cruel manner which seemed to raise the susceptibilities of his hon. and learned Friend. He hoped the Committee- would accept the clause of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, because he was satisfied that flogging would be found a great deterrent against these abominable crimes.

said, the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Stockport (Mr. Hopwood) drew a very interesting analogy between hanging and whipping. There was this about the two punishments—that neither could be recalled; if a man was flogged no process of law could relieve him from the disgrace attending the punishment. But there was one observation he wished particularly to make, and it was that this horrible offence—and he could conceive no offence deserving of severer punishment than that now under consideration—this offence was, unhappily, committed by persons in various classes of society, and he was afraid it was the practice of Judicial Tribunals in this country to award whipping to persons of one class of society only. He had no confidence that if whipping were provided as a punishment for this horrible offence it would be administered to persons of considerable social standing if they should happen to be brought within the meshes of the law. The Committee had not yet heard the opinion of the highest authority in the House on the subject. They had some right to look for "light and leading" from the Home Secretary (Sir R. Assheton Cross) to whom the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Stockport (Mr. Hopwood) had referred as, perhaps, one of the most experienced authorities upon this very important question.

said, that as no one on the Ministerial side of the House had as yet spoken upon this matter he rose to say if the hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler) pressed his Amendment to a division he would be happy to vote with him. A good deal had been said about the deterrent effect of flogging. He wished to say this as regarded the Navy—and he was not one who wished to see flogging re-introduced into the Navy—that ever since the abolition of flogging in the Navy the cases of assaults on superior officers had very largely increased. During the last eight or 10 years before the abolition of flogging, and whilst flogging was, so to speak, dying out in the Service, the cases of assaults upon superior officers increased in the proportion as the cases of flogging decreased. There were Returns in the Library which bore out exactly what he said. He was perfectly satisfied that flogging did most decidedly act as a deterrent in the case of garotting.

was desirous of saying a word or two upon the Amendment moved by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler), because it carried out a suggestion which he made to the Grand Jury of his county about a year ago, that it was absolutely necessary that in these cases a more severe punishment than the law provided should be given. He made the suggestion for the reason that during the 15 years that he had had the honour of being one of the Chairman of Quarter Sessions in Worcestershire this kind of offence had been continually increasing. He found, on looking through the Calendars, that now there were usually seven or eight of such cases out of a total of 30 or 40 cases. Within the last 10 years there had been upwards of 200 assaults upon children by adult men, tried at Assizes and Sessions in his county. He had never passed a lenient sentence in any one of those cases, and therefore he could only come to the conclusion that the present punishment of imprisonment was not sufficient to prevent an increase of those abominable offences. What the state of things was in the rest of England he did not pretend to know; but he believed the judicial statistics would show that this crime had increased in the country generally. It was a crime which Parliament would do well to deal with with the greatest severity. He was not at all in favour of the punishment of flogging as a rule; but he thought that with regard to particular offences it was necessary to take into account their nature, and to see what was best adapted to check them. What was this offence of assaulting innocent children? It surely was one of the most brutal offences in the world, and, therefore, one which might very well be met by a certain amount of brutality in the punishment. He should be very glad if Parliament would try whether the punishment of flogging would not act as a considerable deterrent in regard to offences of this kind. He was afraid that while certain kinds of crime in this country were fortunately on the decrease, there had not been a decrease, but, on the contrary, a considerable increase, in the offences which sprang from brutal passion. He believed the best thing the Committee could do was to adopt this Amendment, and see whether flogging would not prove effectual, especially as the crimes aimed at by this Bill were peculiarly heinous.

inquired if it was customary in Worcestershire, a division of which the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Hastings) represented, to try cases of this description which were not triable at Quarter Sessions?

regretted that when the hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler) moved his Amendment there were very few Members present, because he was sure that if there had been a large Committee it would have been very much moved by the arguments used by the hon. Gentleman in his very excellent speech, arguments with which he (Mr. S. Smith) entirely agreed. Some of the cases which came before the public were almost too horrible to mention. He would read a line or two to the Committee with regard to one case well known in the City of London, and ask hon. Gentlemen if flogging was too severe a punishment to inflict upon the offender. This was what one of the gaol chaplains in London had written—

"There is a monster now walking about, who acts as a clerk in a highly respectable establishment, who is 50 years of age. For years it has been his villainous amusement to decoy and ruin children. A very short time ago 16 eases were proved against him before a magistrate on the Surrey side of the river. The children were all fearfully injured, possibly for life."

He (Mr. S. Smith) believed there were 80 cases of injury proved against the man. [An hon. MEMBER: Rubbish!] He could give the name to the hon. Gentleman who said this was rubbish. To show the frequency of this offence he might say that it was only that day he had cut out of a Liverpool paper another case, in which no less than 80 instances of injury to children under 13 years of age were charged against one man. A great many cases of the most dreadful kind had come before him in connection with the various benevolent Societies in which he was interested—some of them were almost incredible. The men who committed those offences seemed to have such a propensity to commit thorn that it almost amounted to insanity, and he did believe that no punishment would restrain that class of brutes so effectually as flogging. He believed flogging would act as a much greater deterrent than any amount of penal servitude. It was the only kind of punishment that those brutal natures could feel, and he was convinced of this—that throughout the country there was growing a very strong determination that far more severe punishment should be meted out to those offenders. If he was not mistaken they would before long see a very extensive application of the law of lynching in this country. ["Oh!"] Yes; he believed they would see the application of the lynch law to the monsters whose whole lives were devoted to this detestable occupation. He believed that in no country except England would such men be allowed to go about unharmed; certainly in the United States brutes like those would soon receive a taste of the lynch law. Flogging was a lenient punishment for cases of that kind. He would ask hon. Gentlemen who objected to the infliction of flogging what would be their feelings if their own little daughters were assaulted? What would they think if their little girls of four or five were injured for life, as he had known several young children to be? Would they consider flogging too severe a punishment to impose? He held there was nothing in the last degree cruel or barbarous in flogging for such offences. Punishment was the expression of the righteousness of justice, and the conscience of the people demanded a severe punishment in these cases. He believed that if the question were put to the vote of the millions not one man in 1,000 would be found to say that flogging ought not to be a part of the punishment. He hoped the Committee would accept the Amendment. He was sure that by so doing they would give satisfaction out-of-doors. He had received many resolutions from meetings asking for flogging. This was essentially a working man's question, and the working men were crying out that flogging should be the punishment of the men who went about ruining little girls by the hundreds.

said, the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Stockport (Mr. Hopwood) appeared to produce a considerable impression upon the hon. Members who sat near him by the reason he gave for the failure of the very severe punishments which were known at the beginning of this century. Surely it could not hav8 escaped the hon. and learned Gentleman's recollection that at the beginning of the century there was great inequality in the punishment meted out to offences against the person as compared with offences against property; that the punishments in the latter case were such that the conscience of the nation revolted against them; and that juries could hardly be found to convict, or Judges to pass sentence, because of their severity. It really became a regular system amongst criminals to take the chance of whether they met with a hanging Judge, as he was called, or one who would not pass the capital sentence. But in the present case it could not be contended that the punishment which it was now proposed to inflict for this villainous offence was otherwise than one which ought naturally to follow it. The offence was such that if the offender were to walk up the floor of the House there was not an hon. Member who would not be inclined to apply a whip, supposing he had one, to the fellow's back. There was a great difference between these cases and those to which the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Hopwood) had alluded. He (Mr. Finch-Hatton) intended to vote for the Amendment, and had felt bound to point out how false the historical analogy of the hon. and learned Gentleman was.

said, the question had been discussed pretty fully, and he did not know that they would gain very much by discussing it at any greater length. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Stockport (Mr. Hopwood) asked if he (Sir R. Assheton Cross) would give his opinion on the subject. Of course, he was bound to do so, quite irrespective of any appeal which might be made to him in the matter. There was one thing he regretted about the question of flogging, and that was that it was brought forward every now and again in certain individual cases, and never dealt with as a question of principle. However, he was called upon to deal with this Amendment, and in dealing with it he had to ask himself two questions. First of all, was this punishment known to their Criminal Law? About that there was not the smallest doubt. And the next question he had to ask himself was, if it was known to their Criminal Law, was it applied to offences of a higher or lower character to the one under consideration? Well, so long as the punishment existed he could not imagine an offence of a graver character, or one which was more deserving such a punishment, than that of an assault upon a child. If he were asked why he was in favour of flogging his answer would be that he believed that it was a deterrent. Hon. Members remembered the debate which took place not many years ago as to whether flogging was proper in the Army. One of the strongest arguments then advanced in favour of the abolition of flogging was that it deterred men from entering the Army. But if it deterred men from going into the Army it must also have deterred men from committing offences in the Army. He, therefore, thought it could not be said that the chance of having such a punishment inflicted was not a deterrent. He quite agreed that in this particular case the Committee ought to be very careful what they did. They ought not to legislate in a panic. They ought to act calmly and judicially, and that was the reason why he put the two questions he had mentioned to himself. As far as he could see, there was no offence of a worse character than the one they contemplated. The consequences were so grievous, and the mind of the man who could commit such an offence must be so brutal, that there was hardly any punishment for it severe enough. Do not lot them be led away by the thought that the Judges would always impose this punishment. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Stockport (Mr. Hopwood) had said very truly that whipping when once administered could never be taken back. A man might be imprisoned and then released, but a man could not be relieved of the disgrace which whipping entailed. But it might be depended upon that that would make a Judge extremely cautious how he acted; if there was the smallest doubt in his mind as to the guilt of the accused he would assuredly not order flogging. If the hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler) went to a division, he (Sir R. Assheton Cross) would, for the reasons he had given, vote for the Amendment.

said, he had long entertained so strong and decided an opinion with respect to the punishment of flogging that he felt he should do wrong if he did not express that opinion now. He yielded to no one in his horror and detestation of this crime. He quite agreed that no punishment could be too severe for it; but he strongly objected to the punishment of flogging for two reasons. The first was that it was perhaps above all other punishments an unequal punishment. They inflicted the same number of strokes upon two men, and the chances were that the man who deserved to feel the punishment most felt it by far the least. It was an extremely unequal punishment. And, in the next place, it was of all punishments the most uncertain. They had to leave the punishment, as they must leave it, to the discretion of the Judges. There were some Judges who would always flog; there were some Judges who would never flog. Whether the punishment was inflicted or not depended, not upon the gravity of the offence, but upon, the particular Judge who might chance to go that particular Circuit. He quite agreed that if men could be certain that flogging would always be inflicted it might act as a great deterrent; but wherever a particular punishment was uncertain, wherever it was doubtful whether a man would receive it or not, a man always gave himself the benefit of the doubt, and the punishment was not a deterrent to the extent it would be if the punishment were a certain punishment. He (Sir Farrer Herschell) knew it was the prevailing opinion that this punishment acted as a great deterrent in cases of crimes of violence—that it put down garotting. He invited anyone who entertained that belief to be good enough to peruse a Return which was laid on the Table of the House at his instance, because by that Return it was shown very clearly that garotting had been put down before the Flogging Act was passed. He obtained a Return of the number of crimes of violence at the Central Criminal Court and at every Assize for the two years before the flogging was introduced and for every year subsequently; and if anything was proved by that Return it was proved to conclusion that the offence of garotting had been substantially put down before the Act imposing flogging was passed. And how was it put down? He believed the suppression of garotting was due very much to the action of one Judge who sat at the Central Criminal Court. A number of these cases came before him, and he dealt with them with very great severity. From that time the cases in which this cruelty to persons was inflicted ceased. If hon. Members would read the Return to which he alluded they would find that if a Judge went Assize and flogged a number of men for a particular offence, the number of such offences at the next Assize did not diminish. If they could prove anything from it, it would be this—that a flogging Judge was followed by a number of garotting cases, and that a non-flogging Judge by a great diminution of that crime. He did not say that was the result; but he did maintain that if anything was conclusively proved it was that flogging had not the deterrent effect it was commonly believed to have, There must be uncertainty in the punishment. They could not say that every man who committed a particular offence should be flogged; and unless they did that they left the punishment uncertain. He had these strong objections to the punishment, and therefore he was opposed to any attempt to extend it. He knew the offence with which this clause dealt was one about which people felt most strongly. He knew that the inclination of everyone, as the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Finch-Hatton) had said, would be to inflict personal chastisement; but, after all, that was not the calm state of mind in which the Committee ought to deliberate as to whether punishment of this sort should be awarded. He had felt bound to make these observations to the Committee. This was with him a matter of principle which he had put before the House on previous occasions, and in relation to which he moved for his Return. Although he should be glad to see the most severe punishment inflicted upon these offenders, he could not consistently support the Amendment of his hon. Friend (Mr. H. H. Fowler).

said, that after the speech of the hon. and learned Gentleman (Sir Farrer Herschell) he felt he ought very shortly to express the opinions he held upon this question. The hon. and learned Gentleman had said that the punishment of flogging was unequal. That was perfectly true; but surely all punishments were unequal. A term of imprisonment would have a very different effect upon an educated man than upon a man who had passed all his life in the slums. That argument, therefore, failed. Again, the hon. and learned Gentleman said that this punishment was uncertain. In answer to that, he would simply say that all punishments were uncertain so far as the Judges were concerned. It was perfectly well known that some Judges were in the habit of dealing with certain offences in a very severe manner, and that other Judges were inclined to deal with the same offences more leniently. But he might observe that the uncertainty was not in practice really so great as was supposed from the accounts in the newspapers, because the special facts, either in mitigation or increase of the offence, often were not stated, yet it was by those that the Judges were influenced. Therefore, he could not agree with the objections which the hon. and learned Gentleman had raised to the infliction of flogging. In his opinion, this punishment would not be more unequal than any other punishment, neither would it be more uncertain than any other punishment. Then they had to see whether the punishment was a fitting one for the offence. If the offence was a very degrading one, a degrading punishment was a suitable punishment to inflict. A man who could commit this offence must be of so degraded a mind that he would not be further degraded by the punishment. But the punishment being a severe one might deter a man of a less degraded mind from committing this offence. The hon. and learned Gentleman said they were not in a judicial frame of mind to settle this question, because they each felt they would like to inflict a flogging upon any man who committed this offence. But was not that very good proof that the punishment of flogging was a proper one? They each felt that flogging was a punishment that they would inflict, and willingly inflict, upon a man who committed this offence; and surely that feeling was not an unfair test of the fitness of the punishment to be imposed. He had ventured to state his views before the Committee because he felt as strongly in favour of flogging for such an offence as that under consideration as the hon. and learned Gentleman felt against it, although he must admit that he generally felt great diffidence in his own opinion if it ran counter to that of the hon. and learned Gentleman.

said, he thought his hon. and learned Friend (Sir Farrer Herschell) had fully exposed the delusion so widely prevalent that flogging put down garotting. He (Mr. Jacob Bright) remembered having a talk on the subject some years ago with Lord Aberdare, at that time Home Secretary. Lord Aberdare told him that he had gone into the whole question, and had found that garotting was not put down by the lash, but by other causes. The late Solicitor General (Sir Farrer Herschell) had shown that there were other punishments that might deter garotting and deter any other crime—punishments which were not brutalizing to the individuals who received them, and not brutalizing to the general public. His hon. and learned Friend the Member for Stockport (Mr. Hopwood) called the attention of the Committee to the fact that in 1874 the Home Secretary (Sir B. Assheton Cross), although greatly pressed to extend the practice of flogging, had the strength to resist the pressure. He (Mr. Jacob Bright) regretted that the right hon. Gentleman had not had the strength to resist the proposal of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler).