pital punishment, and to reduce the offence, as well as the punishment, down to the standard of simple larceny. Now so far as it took away the punishment of death, he was inclined to approve it; because sentences of death of ten pronounced in cases where they are scarcely ever fit to be executed, tended much to diminish their effect: but he could by no means agree to the propriety of leaving the offence punishable with no greater severity than simple larceny. His learned friend was reported to have introduced the bill with pretty severe comments on the statute of Elizabeth intended to be repealed; and any proposition of his was sure to come recommended by so much elo quence as to render it a difficult matter to consider it immediately with an unbiased mind: yet upon reference to the statute, it would be found to contain a statement of facts verified by an experience of two centuries and a half, and equally applicable to the present time. It states that the offenders then called cut-purses were very nu'merous, confederated into fraternities of an art or mystery to live idly by secret spoil, even to the impoverishment of many, frequenting for that purpose places of public resort, such as places of divine worship, the court, courts of justice, fairs, markets, and places of execution, and being habited in such a garb as to elude suspicion. To this enumeration of places, the bank of England, and the approach to bankers' shops, might now be added: in every other respect the description suited the present time. He was well informed by magistrates of experience that the number at present exceeded hundreds, some thought to the amount of several; that many underwent a regular training to the art; that they plundered to such an amount, and were so far confederated, that large sums were never wanting for the purpose of procuring the ablest assistance upon their trials, or of buying off prosecutors or witnesses; upon the whole, next to nightly housebreakers, no class of offenders were so pernicious. It was also observable that the circumstances described in this statute had always been deemed aggravations of the offence of simple larceny, and therefore deserving of an aggravated degree of punishment. Such were the number of offenders, and the extent of the depredations, that they were perpetrated with an art which denoted education, by gangs which are dangerous, and in a manner to elude all ordinary care and vigilance. That these practices prevailed to an alarming

extent, and would not be repressed without severer punishment than transportation for seven years (the highest pu nishment for simple larceny), he could unfortunately testify from his own experience in the county palatine of Chester. What had there happened within these few years, he was sure must strike the benevolent mind of his learned friend. During four or five years preceding the spring of 1806, several boys had been there brought to trial; the numbers had been increasing, till seven or eight at one assizes appeared to be confederated in a regular gang, and to have frequented the neighbouring fairs and markets, executing their designs with all the same art and system that is to be found within the metropolis. The court, having before tried milder punishments, proceeded upon this occasion in two instances to transportation for seven years but so little terror did this punishment inspire, that at the spring assizes in 1806, among forty prisoners, there was the melancholy exhibition of no fewer than seventeen boys between the ages of twelve and sixteen. They came from the manufacturing part of the county, and their offence was generally that of privately stealing, either from the shop or the person. Several were acquitted, either from accidental defects, or for want of prosecution through the tenderness of their prosecutors: but among those who were convicted, some received sentence of death, and the former punishments having proved ineffectual, it was judged necessary to make a severer example by transporting two for seven years, and recommending two of the capital convicts to the royal mercy on transportation for life. This increased severity happily produced a better effect, insomuch, that during the four last assizes, only four boys have appeared in the calendars, and none of them members of any regular confederacy. From all the foregoing circumstances he drew this inference; that simply to repeal the statute of Elizabeth, as the bill proposed, would operate, not to the prevention, but to the encou ragement of this species of theft, and that the power of transporting for life was indispensable. There existed likewise one difficulty in prosecutions under the statute of Elizabeth, which arose out of the construction which had been put upon the words, "privily without his knowledge.' This difficulty might in his opinion be removed with advantage, by annexing the severer punishment to any larceny from the person, under circumstances not amount

ing to robbery: because it was an old and just principle in the law, that the person as well as the house ought to be protected with more than common care. For a similar reason it was, in his opinion, unwise to make any dis tinction as to the value of the thing stolen: no such distinction being made either in the case of robbery from the person, or in that of burglary; more especially likewise as it often happened, even where a large propesty was stolen from the person, that the money if found having, in the language of the law, no ear mark, could rarely be proved; whilst the purse, or the pocket book containing it, though of trifling value, could easily be identified. For these reasons he strongly recommended, that instead of death, should be substituted transportation for lite, or any shorter time not less than seven years, or a long or short imprisonment with or without hard labour, at the discretion of the court, as the case might require. If therefore his learned friend was disposed to allow that the bill should be thus modified in the committee, he was inclined to think that it might prove an amendment of the

law.

Mr. Herbert likewire objected to the preamble of the bill. Human laws, he said, were made for preventing, not for avenging crimes, and hence it often happened that punishments seemed to be disproportioned to the crimes. There were two different kinds of criminal legislation, according to archdeacon Paley: the one was that which assigned capital punishments only to the highest species of crimes; the other, that which had been adopted in this country, assigned capital punishments to a variety of crimes, but inflicted it upon only a few examples of cachclass by way of example. He had no hesitation in confess ing that he agreed in opinion with the learned author to whom he had alluded, but he should not be so averse to the bill itself were it not for the declaration in the preanble. He hoped, however, that at all events it would be postponed till another session.

Sir Arthur Piggott agreed that the criminal law of the land ought not rashly to be altered. But he contended that the las had not answered the great purpose of preventing crimes, and that its failure ought to be ascribed to its severity, which in many instances prevented persons from prosecuting those guilty of smaller offences. How far it might be proper to modify the severity of the punishment,

was another question not now before the house, and which would furnish matter of discussion in the committee.

The Solicitor General thought that there was at least so much good in the bill as to sanction the house going into a committee upon it, for the purpose of seeing whether it was possible to find a remedy for an evil of very great magnitude, or not, He did not mean, however, to pledge himself finally to give it his support, because he was not sure whether it would be possible for the committee to remove his objections to it.

Mr. C. W. Wynne confessed that the house ought not rashly to alter the criminal law of the country. The law, however, which it was now proposed to change, had never been executed in the recollection of any person now living. The consequence of this was, that its effect was lessened, because the probability of escape was great. He was of opinion, that it might be expedient to leave a discretionary power to the judges, of transporting for life persons guilty of the offences to which the bill applied; indeed he thought, that transportation for life was generally preferable to transportation for a limited time; because when the culprits returned, being wholly without character or protection, they were in most cases compelled to revert to their former habits.

Mr. Ponsonby agreed with those who were of opinion, that the house ought to go into a committee on the bill; because there was nothing in the bill which ought not to be the great object of all criminal law, namely, suiting the punishment to the crime.

Mr. Leycester said, that the house would do a great mischief indeed, if they were to prescribe such punish ment for offences, that would not, if inflicted, in every possible instance, be felt as a hardship.

Sir Ralph Milbank thought that the less discretion left in the administration of criminal justice, the better; and agreed with a learned author, who had said, that it was better to have law without equity, than equity with out law. He should certainly vote for going into a committee on the bill.

Sir Samuel Romilly was desirous that the preamble of the bill should stand; but if there were any objections to it, he should not persist in pressing it. With respect to the bill itself, the simple question was, whether privately stealing should remain a capital felony, or be rendered a

[cov simple larceny. The law as it at present stood, had, he contended, shocked the humanity of prosecutors, of juries, and of judges. The offence which it was the intention of the statute of queen Elizabeth to prevent, had become more frequent than ever, because the punishment for the offence being too severe, it very often happened that no punishment at all was inflicted. He asked then, whether a law which encouraged, instead of preventing crimes, ought to be suffered to remain upon the statute book. To the authority of Dr. Paley, he opposed that of Mr. Jus tice Blackstone, who in his Commentaries asserts, that the severity of the criminal law increases the number of of fences. It struck him as very extraordinary, that in, country and in a house so wise and humane as this, hun dreds were ready to cry out against every attempt to mitigate the criminal law; but if any measure was introduced for the purpose of aggravating its severity, no per son was found to object to it. He stated the difference in the value of money, to be another reason for making an alteration in the law. Any other observations which he might have occasion to make, he should reserve for the committee on the bill.

Having gone into a commitee,

The Solicitor General proposed a clause, declaring that stealing without a person's knowledge, whether privily from the person or not, as contradistinguished from rob bery, should be punished by banishment for life, to be reduced at the discretion of the judge to banishment for 'any period not less than seven years; leaving it, however, optional with the judge, if the case should seem to merit it, to commute the punishment into imprisonment for any period not exceeding three years. The learned gentle man also condemned the preamble of the bill, by which the law was declared to be too severe, while no other ratio of punishment was fixed on. The law which inflicted a capital punishment on persons stealing from a dwellingbouse, in certain cases five shillings, and in other cases forty shillings, depended on the same principle, and yet it was not contended that these punishments ought be abrogated.

Mr. Windham assented to the propriety of the clause proposed by the honourable and learned gentleman.

Mr. Horner was surprised to observe a clause of this nature, which, in fact, went to introduce a novelty into the