, in moving the second reading of this Bill, said, it was an attempt to deal with a very extensive and gross system of robbery. According to the existing law an innkeeper was liable for the safe custody of the goods brought into his house by his guests, because it was assumed that they were intrusted to his care. Some responsibility of the kind he ought to be saddled with, for his guests had no control over the management of his house—they knew nothing of his servants, and had no control over the fastenings of the doors and passages of the inn. But if the innkeeper was bound to take care of the goods of his guests, surely there should be a reciprocal obligation on the part of a traveller to pay some little attention to the security of his own property. At present no such obligation was imposed upon him; the law entitled him to recover the full value of any goods lost—and, indeed, to put his own value upon any property which he might choose to say he had lost, and to recover the amount from the innkeeper. The law was different in France, where an hotelkeeper, by giving public notice that he would not be responsible unless the goods were specially deposited with him, could exonerate himself from all liability with respect to them. So, too, in Belgium, an innkeeper could divest himself of responsibility by proving that his customer had not exercised due care. Even in England, if a shopkeeper chose to expose his goods in the public streets, and they were stolen, although the thief was punished for the robbery, yet the courts invariably did their best to discourage such negligence; yet here the landlord was held liable, even if he had given distinct warning. The only person entirely relieved from the care of his own property was the guest in a good hotel. In a case tried at the Maidstone summer assizes of 1862, Mr. Baron Martin told the jury that the question of negligence on the part of the owner of the lost property had nothing whatever to do with the matter, and that they must not, by taking it into consideration, make themselves wiser than the law. The jury found a verdict of £70 for the plaintiff, or £21 less than he had asked; and they also found that the traveller had been guilty of negligence; and the learned Judge refused to take Mr. Lush's exception to his ruling, saying, "This is the law; you must get an Act of Parliament if you desire to alter it." I Now, that was the very thing for which he (Mr. Wykeham Martin) was now asking. That case showed that the negligence of the guest did not exonerate the unfortunate hotelkeeper. But hotelkeepers were exposed to various other risks. Passing over those which arose from the mistakes of travellers, who often declared that they had brought property into their inns when they really had not, and so sought to make the landlord pay, they were also subject to risks from gross and deliberate fraud. Of the former case—he once heard a gentleman say he had lost a parcel, containing jewellery, at an hotel; all the porters declared they had not seen it, but the gentleman was positive that he had lost it at the hotel, and used all kinds of threats against them. While the parties were wrangling on the subject, the railway porters brought the very parcel in dispute, which had been left at the railway, and, consequently, had never been Drought to the hotel at all. Yet, supposing the parcel had been stolen from the platform, the guest, without intention of fraud, would have sworn he brought the parcel into the hotel, and the keeper would have been liable, not only fur the goods of his guest, but for the errors of his guest. In former days, our ancestors, or some of them, thought they found their highest comfort in their inns. We were no longer content with the accommodation of the old-fashioned inns which satisfied our forefathers, and a new class of large hotels had sprung up in answer to the complaints which frequently appeared in The Times and other news- papers. These establishments, founded by companies, and conducted on improved principles, were, however, more exposed than their older and smaller rivals to the arts of the swindler. Indeed, they were quite as defenceless against frauds of that kind as the monster of the deep was against the assaults of the swordfish, and no possible precaution could afford them the least protection. There was great competition in the trade, and unless Parliament provided some remedy for the evil, fraud on the one side would engender fraud on the other, and they would have bankrupt proprietors put in to manage these hotels; and if there were capital behind them, it would be covered by bills of sale or by mortgages on the buildings, and so the public would lose the protection it was supposed to enjoy under the present state of the law. He had known claims to be made against landlords of inns by persons who said they had lost property worth many hundreds of pounds, but which they had afterwards found in their own houses. But there were frequent cases in which, although there had been actual loss, that loss had not been incurred in the hotels, and yet the parties, either to avert disagreeable consequences from themselves or for a fraudulent purpose, claimed compensation from the innkeepers. In one instance two brothers-in-law went to a very respectable hotel at Manchester, where they had a double-bedded room allotted to them, at their own request. They dined together in the coffee-room. Shortly afterwards the single brother went to bed, and the married brother expressed his intention to follow him as soon as he had finished his cigar. That intention was not quite borne out by his subsequent acts, for he retired to a house in the neighbourhood, and there, with his own hand, surrendered £200, in notes, to the "bully" of the establishment. He returned to the hotel, and next morning made a claim for the £200 against the hotelkeeper. To disarm suspicion, the hotel-keeper did not refuse to pay; but asked the single brother when the married brother came to bed, and his reply was, that he did not know, but certainly not while he was awake. The owner of the notes made a circumstancial statement as to his having had them in his coat-pocket, which he hung against his bedroom door. But the landlord spoke about the matter to a detective officer, who went and recovered the notes, and the owner was obliged to sign a statement at the police office as to where he lost them. The delinquent husband, however, was so alarmed lest his wife should come to know the circumstances that he returned the notes to the "bully," who was probably now living on the proceeds. In another instance a gentleman made a claim on an innkeeper fur a pocket-book containing bank notes which he said he had lost at his house. While, however, they were talking about the occurrence, a policeman brought back the pocket-book and the notes, which he had picked up, because the owner had retired, but not to his own couch, immediately after dinner. These were but samples of many other cases hardly fit to be mentioned, showing the hardships under which landlords of inns were placed by their present liability. But a third class of claims made upon hotelkeepers were still more serious. Persons were in the habit of going to hotels and obtaining compensation for the loss of goods which, perhaps, never had any existence at all. In the month of June 1862, a certain lady claimed compensation from the Grosvenor Hotel Company for valuable jewellery, which she said had been stolen from her room. When the police came, she valued the property at £50. Nobody had seen her bring any jewellery to the hotel. She afterwards consulted a gentleman learned in the law, and then fixed her demand at £117 14s. The company were advised that they had no defence to the action, as she swore positively that she had lost the articles while at the hotel, and they paid her the sum of 100 guineas. A little later a gentleman made a similar claim on the same company for £32, and though he could not state what were the articles he had lost, or their value, he had to be paid in full. Six weeks afterwards another gentleman claimed compensation from the same parties for £215 in Bank of England notes, which he said he had lost while staying at their establishment. On his own showing he left the notes in an open portmanteau on the floor of his room, the door of which was open; and if that was not negligence, it would be difficult to say what was. He could not give the numbers of the notes himself, and he added that on reference to the banker who had given him them, the banker could not tell the numbers either. Now, one of the first bankers had assured him the other day that such a thing as the banker and the customer being both ignorant of the numbers of the notes in such a case was scarcely within the bounds of possibility. His own firm belief was that they were not lost at the hotel, and, as a juryman, he would strongly suspect that they had never been lost at all. The remedy he proposed to apply by his Bill was this:—He would generally leave the law as it stood, but would limit the innkeeper's responsibility for the goods or property of his guests at not more than £20, unless the property were deposited with him expressly for safe custody, in which case he would be answerable for its full value. He had taken the limit of £20, because that was the sum named in the Carriers Act; but he was not wedded to that precise amount, and would be willing to modify it in Committee. The hon. Member for Reading (Sir F. Goldsmid) said the interpretation clause was faulty; but that might be amended. The hon. and learned Member for Youghal (Mr. Butt) had introduced a Bill very much to the same effect as his, but he might be excused for preferring his own child. It would be for the House to choose between the two measures, or to say whether they ought not to be amalgamated. But he entreated them not to check the investment of capital in a trade beneficial to the public and most respectably conducted, and he hoped that in common justice and fairness they would not refuse to affirm the principle of this Bill.

had great pleasure in supporting this measure, which had long been required for the protection alike of the innkeepers and the public, and he believed it would be a great boon to both. The publicans were unanimously in its favour, and no Petitions, that he was aware of, had been presented against it. He would appeal to the hon. and learned Member for Youghal, who had brought in a Bill nearly identical with the present one, to withdraw his measure, and allow this one to go into Committee. The principal, if not the only, difference between the two Bills was as to the amount at which the innkeeper's liability should be fixed. For himself he cared little whether the limit was £20 or £50. That point, however, like all the other matters of detail, could be satisfactorily arranged in Committee, and he trusted that the House would now give this Bill a second reading.

rose to move that the Bill be read the second time that day six months, and said, that a measure similar in its title and substance was introduced a few years ago by the hon. and gallant Member for York (Colonel Smyth) That Bill was read a second time, but was thrown out at a subsequent stage on the suggestion of one whose loss they all deplored (Sir George Lewis), then the Home Secretary. The present Bill was liable to the same objection as the former measure. The preamble was false in fact. It stated that the facilities given to travelling by railways and otherwise had so increased the quantity and value of property brought to inns as to render the trade of an innkeeper extremely hazardous and dangerous under the present state of the law. Why, the facilities for banking and our unproved police had tended to diminish rather than increase the risks which in ancient times attended the operation of the common law rule in this matter. In Hone's Every Day Book he found a citation from a report of the reign of Elizabeth, in which it appeared that the hundreds objected to pay for the loss sustained by some clothiers who travelled on the highway—first, because they had not joined the great troop of travellers; and secondly, because they carried their money openly in wallets on their saddles. All that, however, was now changed, and he thought the change had diminished rather than increased the risk. The hon. Mover himself spoke of one thing, and the preamble of his Bill of another; because he talked of the frauds committed on innkeepers in respect to goods not brought into and not lost in their houses, while his preamble referred to goods actually brought there. Again, the fact that great capital had lately been embarked in this particular business was not an indication that those who were about to enter into it were much alarmed at the present state of the law. The common law principle as to the liability of innkeepers had prevailed from time immemorial; and it was adopted in substance from the civil law of the Romans, and might fairly be assumed to have something reasonable about it. It was for the landlord to see that he had good bolts and locks to his doors, and that his servants were trustworthy—matters for which his guest could not be responsible. These were reasons why the responsibility should rest on the landlord. The hon. Member had over stated the innkeeper's liability. They were not to look to what a Judge of Assize had decided at Nisi Prius for an authoritative exposition of the law, but to the decisions of the Court sitting in Banco to review his decisions. The difference between the position of an innkeeper and another person was this:—In the case of ordinary bailees in charge of other people's goods the want of care must be shown to make them liable, while in regard to the innkeeper the want of care would be presumed; but if the contrary could be shown, and the loss had been incurred by the guest's own indifference or negligence, the innkeeper was no longer responsible. The law, therefore, was already in the state in which the hon. Member intended to place it, In Smiths Leading Cases, vol. i., on "Calye's Case," decided in the Court of King's Bench, there was this passage—

"The Judge, Richards, C.B., told the jury, that pimâ facie the innkeeper was answerable for the goods of the guest in his inn, but that the guest might by his own conduct discharge him from responsibility, and left it to them to say whether he bad done so here. The jury found that he had; and on a motion for a new trial the Court approved the direction of the learned Judge, and thought the verdict was correct."

But this Bill would absolve the innkeeper from responsibility altogether, except for goods not exceeding £20 in value. It would not leave him in the position of an ordinary bailee, but would convert him, from a bailee with extraordinary liability, into a bailee with extraordinary immunity. The proposed condition as to specially depositing articles of high value could not possibly be fulfilled. How, for example, could a lady deposit with the innkeeper her wearing apparel? How, again, was a traveller to deposit with him a horse, which must necessarily be left in a stable? The innkeeper might be absent, and a servant entitled to receive the deposit of goods might not be found; or if he could be found, this was hardly a case in which they could apply the maxim, Qui facit per alium, facit per se. How was the guest then to act? The interpretation clause of the Bill was a singular piece of legislation. It defined "properly" to mean "money, securities for money, title-deeds, precious stones, jewellery, wearing apparel, goods, wares, merchandise, chattels and effects, animals, and things of every description;" and, not content with these last exhaustive words, the draughtsman added "and the receptacles for the same," as if the box containing a guest's goods were something different from "a thing." What was that but proposing to repeat, in the solemn language of an Act of Parliament, the old joke De omnibus rebus et quibusdam aliis? If the state of the law required remedy, a proper remedy would not be applied by a Bill like this, so false as it was in its preamble, so vague and general in its enactments, and winding up with a climax of absurdity in its concluding sentence. He therefore begged to move, as an Amendment, that the Bill be read a second time that day six months.

, in seconding the Amendment, said, he wished to protect the innkeeper in a fair way, provided equal protection were given to the public; but to require persons staying at hotels to exhibit the contents of their trunks and boxes, or their pocket-books to the prying eyes of an innkeeper, as the condition of being allowed to deposit them with him for safe custody, was a thing quite intolerable. Yet that would be the effect of this measure. On the days of Drawing-rooms ladies would come to hotels with diamonds and jewellery of great value. Was it to be required that they should exhibit all these things to the landlord? Was a man to exhibit all his money and bank-notes to the landlord on penalty of not being able to recover it if it should be stolen from his room.

said, he had come down to the House for the express purpose of hearing what possible reason could be urged against this Bill. He thought the speech of the hon. and learned Member for Reading (Sir Francis Goldsmid), in opposition to the Bill, consisted of much that was wholly irrelevant. He would brush away all that had been said about the preamble—he did not care for the preamble or the interpretation clause. He would come to the real matter. An innkeeper, as the law stood, had placed on him a responsibility which he believed to be unjust; and the Bill provided a mode of relieving him without doing harm to anybody. An innkeeper was responsible for everything which a traveller said he brought—not only for what he brought, but for what he said he brought—into his house. Well, the difficulty started by the hon. Gentleman who last spoke might be met in this way—The hon. Gentleman was the representative of a fox-hunting country;—if he (Mr. Roebuck) went down into the hon. Gentle- man's county to hunt the fox, which, unfortunately, he could not do, and had in his pocket-book a £100 note, why should he not say to the landlord, "I have such a note in my possession; is it safe in my own room, and will you be answerable for it there, or will you take it into your own custody?" Surely that was no hardship on the gentleman who went to hunt the fox. But he would put another case:—Suppose a suspicious-looking person, perhaps a swindler, alighted at an inn, and said he had a £100 note in his possession, the landlord might say, "Will you have the goodness to let me see it?" There could be no harm in that. If it was a note of the Bank of Elegance, the innkeeper would see it, and that would put an end to all chance of his being swindled. In such a case the innkeeper would be relieved of an unjust responsibility. It appeared to him, then, that this Bill sought a good end by right means. It could do no possible harm to any human being, except the rogue, and that, he thought, was a good thing as far as it went.

, having formerly promoted a Bill with a similar object, begged to state that the necessity for such a measure had since increased enormously; and, if better reasons were not urged against it than those which had been stated by the hon. Baronet, he felt assured the House would not only read it a second time, but give its provisions all the consideration which they deserved.

said, he did not think the technical objections which had been stated to the Bill deserved much attention from the House. Railway companies were protected by Act of Parliament, and so were common carriers. If railway companies were protected in this matter, why should not the proprietor of the railway hotel? He thought, the preamble, which had been found fault with, was extremely sensible, and he should cordially support the second reading.

said, he desired to call the attention of the House to the law upon the whole question on which the Bill turned. It was very well stated in Stephen's Commentaries, vol. ii., p. 133, in these words—

"Before we quit the subject of bailment, we must advert to two kinds of bailees, distinguished from others, as subject, by the custom of the realm, to a higher degree of responsibility than that which attaches to bailees in general, according to the rule before laid down; and first, a com- mon innkeeper (which includes the keeper of every tavern or coffee-house in which lodging is provided) is responsible for the goods and chattels brought by any traveller to his inn, in the capacity of guest there, in every case where they are lost, damaged, stolen, or taken by robbery, with the exception only of certain instances in which it would be obviously unjust to apply that general rule; as where they are stolen by the traveller's own servant, or companion, or from his own person, or from a room which he occupied otherwise than as a mere guest, or entirely through his own gross negligence; the object of the rule being to protect travellers from the danger of loss, to which they would otherwise be subject in committing their goods to the charge of a person with whom they have had no previous dealing, and with whose character they are presumably unacquainted."

The civil law, from which the law of England was derived, laid it down thus—

"Art. Prætor.—'Nautæ, caupones, stabularii, quod cujusque salvum fore nisi restituent, in eos judicium dabo.' Maxima utilitas est hujus edicti; quia necesse est plerumque eorum fidem sequi, et res custodiæ eorum committere."—Pandects, L. iv., t. ix.

".…. In deposito dolus dumtaxat præstatur; ut hoc edicto omnimodo qui recepit teneatur, etiamsi sine culpa ejus res periit vel damnum datum est,. nisi si quid damno fatali contingit. Inde Labeo scribit, si quid naufragio aut per vim piratarum perierit, non esse iniquum exceptionem ei dari. Idem erit dicendum si aut in stabulo aut in caupona vis major contigerit."—Lex ii., ibi.

Everything depended on the word recepta. The innkeeper was liable for the things he "received" into his house. A man did not receive a thing without knowing that he received it. Yet the innkeeper was made liable for property although there was no evidence that he had received it. Proof should be given that he had received the property, or he ought not to be liable. He should support the Bill.

said, the Bill he had on the paper was on the same subject, and had the same object in view, and therefore he would not press it.

said, he did not intend to oppose the second reading, on the understanding that the House should not be considered bound by the exact wording of the Bill, and that it should not be imperative on the Speaker to issue his warrant within a shorter time than fourteen days. These matters would have to be settled in the Committee.

Sir, the hon. Gentleman who moved the second reading of the Bill must surely make a mistake when he says that a hundred years ago Parliament gave you the power to fill up vacancies.

said, that in the absence of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. E. P. Bouverie), who had given notice of an intention to move that the Bill be read a second time that day six months, he should himself propose that course to the House. He thought that no good reasons had been assigned for changing a state of things that had endured since the passing of the Reform Act. If there was any anomaly, it was not of such a character as to call for express legislation, but he denied that there was any analogy between occupying householders and freemen. These classes of voters were dealt with, specially and intentionally, in separate sections of the Reform Act, and the Legislature at the time evidently thought that there was good reason for the distinction. No doubt the reason was that Parliament thought it desirable to limit as much as possible the number of freemen voters. Originally, it was proposed that the freemen should be left out altogether; but that giving rise to much opposition, the present provision was agreed to as a kind of compromise. This was a Bill certainly intended to extend the suffrage; and if it were only in the right direction, he should be inclined to support it. But as at the time of the passing of the Reform Act the freemen enjoyed a certain notoriety for accessibility to bribery, which they still retained, he did not consider they were specially entitled to legislative interference in their behalf. There was a reason for the distinction made by the Reform Act. The lists of occupying householders were made out by the overseers of each parish and thus the labour was divided. But the list of freemen voters was to be made out by the town clerk, and it was necessary that there should be some fixed point from which the distance of the freeman's residence should be measured; otherwise, if the distance were reckoned from any part of the borough boundary a special measurement would be necessary in very many cases. He thought there was no necessity for the change proposed; for if the Bill would cure one anomaly, it would leave untouched a greater—the different mode of measurement adopted respectively in the cases of Parliamentary and municipal voters. He thought that no case had been made out in favour of the Bill, and would move that the Bill be read a second time that day six months.

said, he was not going to speak about the Bill, because he did not know much about it; but he wished to repel an imputation upon the hon. Member for West Norfolk and himself, whom the hon. Gentleman who moved the second reading had described as being satisfied with the Reform Act of 1831 as it existed. Now, his hon. Friend and himself had always stated that they were not satisfied with it, and had protested against the Act as unfair and inequitable towards the rural districts, and that, whether population or property be accepted as a test, they were entitled to a larger representation. He thought it a monstrous anomaly that a small peddling town like Knaresborough should have two Members while large and influential constituencies like West Norfolk and South Northamptonshire possessed only an equal representation. He would certainly support a Bill to disfranchise Knaresborough, provided the two Members were given to the counties.

said, that against uniformity of measurement itself nothing could be said, but it could not be overlooked dint there was a great distinction between freemen and householders. It was just and reasonable that men possessing property within a borough, but not actually living within its limits, should not be precluded by that latter fact from Voting for Members of Parliament. In the case of a freeman, however, when he removed from the borough, his interest in it was gone. If this Bill were passed, it might happen that a man having acquired the freedom of a borough by apprenticeship might leave it and take up his abode in another borough ten miles distant; but as his residence might be within seven miles of the nearest boundary of the first borough, he would retain a right to Vote where he had ceased to possess any interest. The different mode of measurement prescribed by the Reform Act had been adopted after full discussion, and it must be assumed for good reasons. It had been agreed on both sides of the House that the present suffrage was too restricted, and ought to be extended; but he had never before heard of any proposition to that effect which was not based upon the possession of property or superior intelligence or education. The effect of this Bill would be to increase considerably the number of freemen in some boroughs, the aggregate number of freemen in all the boroughs being some 40,000. Surely the freemen were not a class deserving of being treated with special favour. Upon no ground could he discover any necessity for the Bill, and therefore he hoped the House would not assent to the second reading.

, in reply, said, that no good reasons had been urged against the Bill. In the Reform Bill as originally introduced, with the concurrence of the entire Cabinet, was the very provision which he now sought to establish by his Bill, and the alteration was only made in the course of discussion, by Lord Althorpe, at the suggestion of Mr. Rigby Wason. It was true that there was an anomaly in the differences existing between the Parliamentary and the municipal franchise; but he hoped that anomaly would be removed, and the same mode of measurement adopted in both cases.

said, that he had been accidentally absent in the early part of the discussion; but he wished to point out to the House that there really was no anomaly to cure. The distinction between householders and freemen was a substantial one, and the only effect of the Bill would be to enlarge the area of residence for one particular class of voters. The Reform Act required residence within the borough as a condition from the freeman to entitle him to vote; and the substantial effect of enlarging the area of residence to seven miles from any part of the borough would be to introduce a class of non-resident freemen as voters—the very worst class of voters that could be found. He was an advocate for an extension of the suffrage, but not in favour of that class of which the records of the House bore testimony that those who composed it were the most corrupt portion of the most corrupt constituencies. Any one who desired to promote purity and economy in elections would be slow to add to that class. Having referred to some of the Reports of investigations that had taken place by direction of that House, he was able to cite a few proofs of how undesirable it was to increase the number of freemen voters—a class that, happily, did not exist in Scotland. In the ease of Hull, the Commissioners, who reported in 1852, said —

"There remain 1,017 cases of persons on the register of 1852 who have been proved to have been bribed at one of the three elections of 1841, 1847, and 1852. Of these, 177 are occupiers and 840 freemen. But it is clear that 840 are not all the freemen on the register of 1852 who had been bribed at one of the three elections. We are fully justified in concluding, that of the 1,494 freemen, whose names appear on the register of 1852, 1,100 were bribed at one or more of the three elections just mentioned."

More recently, in 1860, the Commissioners appoined to inquire into the proceedings at elections at Gloucester, speaking of the freemen, reported—

"The Reform Act, although it mitigated, failed to destroy the evil thus introduced. It lopped off, indeed, a large and costly portion of the constituency, but it retained the portion most calculated to infect, by its presence, the new class of electors whom it had created."

The Commissioners then referred to a practice of paying for the admission of freemen, and then added —

"Such a system is essentially corrupt, and the evidence we have received has left on our minds a strong impression that the perpetuation by such means of a class of electors whose hereditary corruption has greatly deteriorated the character of the constituency, is most calculated to nourish and permanently maintain the demoralization which we have found prevailing at Gloucester."

The next instance he would give was in the case of Great Yarmouth, where it was proved to the satisfaction of a Committee of that House, and they reported, that gross systematic bribery had prevailed, and they recommended disfranchisement of the freemen. A Bill to that effect was introduced by the Chairman of the Committee, Mr. Ker Seymer, and the freemen of Great Yarmouth were disfranchised. In a still more recent instance, that of Berwick-on-Tweed, the Commissioners reported—

"The freemen were generally represented to us as the class most accessible to the influence of bribery. Mr. Weatherhead, the Conservative agent, said he thought he had heard that head money was considered by the freemen as a sort of right; it went by the name of 'gooseberries.' Mr. Forster, thrice returned as the Liberal Member, stated that his own impression was, that while he sat for the borough 'two-thirds of the old freemen and some portion of the householders were corrupt.'"

He contended that that class of voters formed a permanent element of corruption. The freemen were the source of most of the corruption and bribery which entailed so much trouble upon the Legislature and such discredit upon our constitutional system. The hon. Member for Knaresborough (Mr. Collins) asked the House to enlarge the area of residence in favour of that class; but if the House did so, after all its legislation with the object of putting an end to corruption, it would lay itself open to the imputation of not being really desirous of putting an end to such disgraceful practices.

said, he felt bound to notice some of the observations which had fallen from the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Bouverie); but he wished first to express his concurrence with the remarks of his hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Mr. Knightley), with regard to their disapprobation of certain provisions of the existing Reform Act; for they had always held that nothing could be more unjust or unfair than the present state of the representation of the country, by which the rural districts were compelled to bear more than their fair share of the taxation of the country, and he had always been ready to give his assistance towards removing that evil. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Kilmarnock had told them that he was not in favour of the extension of' the franchise in the particular direction suggested by the Bill of his hon. Friend (Mr. Collins). Was that because he apprehended that the class of electors so enfranchised would be unfavourable to the opinions he held? That was obviously the meaning of the opposition of the right hon. Gentle man. Now, what were the arguments in favour of that view of the case? The right hon. Gentleman said that this class of electors were those who were always found to be venal. But the right hon Gentleman advocated lowering the borough franchise. Had he forgotten the fact that almost all the grossest cases of venality were found to exist among the lower classes of borough electors? But the two grossest cases of corruption brought of late years under the consideration of the House had occurred in constituencies — Huddersfield and Wakefield — in which there were no freemen. He was at a loss to know upon what ground the right hon. Gentleman ventured to tell the House that there was more corruption among the freemen than among the lowest class of borough voters. He could only understand it upon the assumption that in the eyes of the right hon. Gentleman corruption was extremely objectionable when the result was unfavourable to the party whose opinions he shared, and highly desirable whenever it would conduce to the spread of those opinions.

said, he could not understand the logic of the argument, that because freemen were corrupt, therefore honest working men who desired to enjoy the franchise would also take bribes for their votes. In the case of Wakefield the bribery was indiscriminate. About one half the voters were bribed, and the amount reached £100, £200, and even, he believed, £300 for a vote. From a want of honesty among thieves—the bribed voters on one side offering to take bribes from the other —discovery had followed. But, where all classes were tainted, no inference could be drawn that £10 householders as a class were venal. He believed that in large constituencies they were not open to bribery at all, and that the working classes, except where they were exposed to the pressure of strong intimidation, exorcised the franchise as honestly as any other portion of the community—much better than any above them, who ought to know better. No one disputed that freemen, whose numbers this Bill would increase, were venal, and that the effect would be to add largely to the number of out-voters, who were the most expensive voters to poll. He should therefore vote against the second reading.

said, he should be glad to see persons punished who were convicted of bribery, and prevented ever afterwards from voting. But Parliament seemed rather chary of following up the precedent of St. Albans. He believed the best mode of reform was to take away the representation of such places and to give it to large counties, such as had been mentioned by the hon. Member for Northamptonshire (Mr. Knightley). As to the argument of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Bouverie), it amounted to this—that because some freemen were bribed, others, who were not bribed, should not be allowed to vote. If the right hon. Gentleman were a sincere admirer of the political wisdom of the Reform Bill and a devout believer in the theory that everything in that Act must be right, and everything not in it must be wrong, he ought to perceive that by its provisions the freemen were preserved; and if the franchise was preserved to them, they ought to have the opportunity of exercising it.

said, that instead of disfranchising all freemen when the Reform Bill passed, a compromise was effected, retaining those who resided within seven miles of the principal polling-place. The freemen in Ireland were exclusively Protestant, and, as a general rule, belonged to one particular party. This Bill would disturb the settlement arrived at in 1832, and introduce in Ireland a new set of freemen exclusively of one religion and one party.

said, he was not aware before that hon. Gentlemen on the Government side of the House deemed Protestantism a positive disqualification for the elective franchise in Ireland. The freemen were the lowest class of voters, and the liberal party pretended to wish to extend the franchise to the very class whom they now charged with being most corrupt. He should not vote for the Bill, because he had no desire to see the franchise extended to these persons. He did not object because they were freemen, but because they were a low class of voters.

said, this first clause would have the effect of making the law of Ireland different from that of England. It was a great mistake to suppose that there was at present any very essential difference between the marriage law of Ireland and England. In England there were three modes adopted. In the first place, persons might be married by the clergymen of the Established Church; secondly, they might be married by the registrar in his own office; and thirdly, they could be married in any licensed Dissenting place of worship. The law in Ireland was the same so far as those three modes of performing the marriage ceremony were concerned. Still there was a difference affecting Dissenters which ought not to exist. In Ireland, before a marriage was celebrated, notice was given to the registrar, who also gave notice to the board of guardians, in order that the circumstance might be made public. That law had been common to both England and Ireland, but it had been repealed so far as England was concerned, and he did not himself see any objection to its being repealed in Ireland, if securities were given, which would have the effect of preventing clandestine marriages. At a future stage of the Bill he should propose the insertion of clauses which would make the law the same in Ireland as in England. He wished to know from the hon. Baronet who had introduced the Bill, what security it would give against clandestine marriages? It appeared to him that the law ought to be assimilated to that of England, and that the parties ought to be required to verify their statement to the registrar.

thought that it was hardly possible to assimilate exactly the law of England and Ireland on this particular matter. The laws of the two countries had not kept pace with each other, and a system of things had grown up in Ireland which made it impossible to extend exactly the same rule to England as to Ireland. The Presbyterians had the advantage given to them of being able to marry by their own ministers; but this privilege was not extended to any other denomination of Dissenters from the Established Church. This was a state of things which the Dissenters of Ireland could hardly be content with. Their grievance was admitted, and their demands, urged from year to year, had been as reasonable as could be expected. The hon. and learned Member for Youghal (Mr. Butt) had not fully considered the provisions of the Bill. The 22nd clause of the Act of 1844 was embodied in this Bill, and in that manner sufficient security was taken in regard to declarations. In the same way the registration of places of worship was provided for by the incorporation in the Bill of the 27th clause of the same Act. He quite agreed, that if sufficient security were not taken in the Bill on these points, it would be necessary to take it by some additional words.

said, there was nobody in the North of Ireland more desirous of seeing the marriage law of Ireland put on a clear and intellible footing than the members of the Presbyterian Church.

pointed out that there was a schedule containing a form of declaration, and a clause which fixed a penalty for making a false declaration. The Bill contained sufficient provisions to prevent clandestine marriages, and it had met with the complete approval of the Wesleyans and Independent Congregations of Ireland.

was satisfied that the Bill contained all necessary securities; but he was sure that the promoters of it would willingly accept any Amendment which might be proposed to make this more certain.

said, the hon. Baronet who had introduced the Bill (Sir Edward Grogan) had taken from the English Act the first portion of the declaration which was required to be made before a marriage was celebrated, but had omitted the most solemn part, and the part which persons would consider in conscience equivalent to an oath. If he should be informed by the hon. Baronet, that when they came to the schedule the declaration contained in the English Act would be inserted in the present Bill in its entirety, he should offer no further opposition to the clause.

said, it was their desire to relieve Dissenters from the grievances which they laboured under from the passing of the Act of 1844. He pointed out that there was no provision made in the clause with reference to persons residing England and Scotland.

believed that his hon. Friend had adopted a mode of publicity that would be satisfactory to the public.

inquired whether the Bill was intended to apply to marriages of members of the Established Church duly solemnized in Church. If so, he should object to it, for the members of that Church were quite content with the security which they enjoyed under the existing law.

said, the Bill did not extend to members of the Established Church. If there, was any doubt upon the point, he was willing to insert any Amendment that would have the effect of making the point perfectly clear.

said, the clause was the most important in the whole Bill, inasmuch as it made a distinction between the English law and that which would become the law in Ireland if the Bill passed. At present in the Dissenting chapels the ceremony of marriage must be performed in the presence of the registrar. That was considered a grievance, and therefore it was proposed to dispense with the presence of the registrar; but it was necessary that there should be a security that the marriage was properly solemnized. The clause enacted that the ceremony should be performed by the "ordained minister" of the Dissenting body to which the parties belonged; but who was to determine that the minister present was a properly "ordained minister" of that particular body? Who was to show that he was ordained at all? He feared, that if this provision were retained, questions would be raised as to the validity of marriages founded on the validity of the ordination of the person who had officiated? In the whole history of our legislation there was no instance of a clause having been inserted in a Bill establishing the validity of the ordination of Dissenting ministers. He moved that the words "an ordained" be struck out of the clause.

said, he did not object to the Amendment, but said the question was not as to what the Church of England considered ordination. It was perfectly well known that the Wesleyans, for instance, had ordinations, and it was well understood what an "ordained minister" meant.

suggested that the words "officiating minister" should be substituted for the words "ordained minister."

admitted the force of the objection to the word "ordained," but said the word "ordained" had been used at the request of the Dissenting bodies to whom the Bill was to apply, as there were two classes of clergymen belonging to these denominations

was sorry that the hon. Baronet had consented to adapt the clause so as to meet the differences between the different Dissenting bodies.

said, the clause introduced a serious alteration in the canonical hours set apart for marriage. It provided that marriages should only take place between the hours of eight and twelve instead of eight and two.

said, the alteration introduced into the Bill was for the express purpose of bringing it back to the canonical hours, which were eight to twelve.

thought the right hon. Baronet had fallen into the mistake in consequence of the Act of 1844 having fixed the hours between eight and twelve.

The Rubric says eight and two.

No, the Rubric says eight and twelve.