Page images
PDF
EPUB

CONTENTS.

Westbury, L. (L. Chan- Hardinge, V.
cellor.)

Manchester, D.
Marlborough, D.
Newcastle, D.
Richmond, D.

Bath, M.
Bristol, M.

Amherst, E.
Bantry, E.
Beauchamp, E.
Belmore, É.
Carnarvon, E.
Cathcart, E.
De La Warr, E.
Coventry, E.
Derby, E.
Desart,

Doncaster, E. (D. of
Buccleuch & Queens-
Graham, E. (D. Mont-
berry.)

Ilutchinson V. (E. Donoughmore.)

Lichfield, Bp.

Oxford, Bp.
Worcester, Bp.

Bagot, L.

Brodrick, L. (V. Midle-
ton.)
Castlemaine, L.
Chelmsford, L.
Cloncurry, L.

Colchester, L.

Colville of Culross, L.
Conyers, L.

Delamere, L.

Digby, L.
Egerton, L.
Feversham, L.

Foley, L.

Gage, L. (V. Gage.)
Hamilton, L. (Ľ. Bel-
haven and Stenton.)
Lilford, L.
Northwick, L.
Polwarth, L.

person would swear that the place was re- -Contents 68; Not-Contents 22: Maputed to be a "shebeen." Could there be jority 46. a more extraordinary enactment? Another was still worse. Clause 20 enacted, that if one credible witness swore that he had reasonable ground for believing that liquors were trafficked in in a particular house, a single justice might issue a warrant to search the place; and if a quantity of spirits exceeding one gallon was found in it, the occupier was to be deemed a dealer in liquor. There was no investigation-the mere fact of finding the liquor and the evidence of one witness that he had reason to believe that a traffic in liquor was going on was sufficient. Now, supposing such a thing as that there was one justice in Argyll who was not very scrupulous, and somebody went before him, and said, "I believe trafficking in spirits is carried on in Inverary Castle;" the justice might issue a search warrant, and if more than a gallon of spirits were found there, it could be seized, his castle would be deemed a "shebeen," and his noble Friend would be convicted as a dealer in liquor. Some of the most mischievous powers of the Bill were given into the hands of one magistrate. He could not concur in the passing of the Bill with such a clause. THE DUKE OF BUCCLEUCH hoped the House would not agree to the Amendment. So far from the Bill coming upon them by surprise, it had been before Parliament in two Sessions, and been discussed in every county meeting in Scotland, and at all those meetings an opinion favourable to its principle was pronounced. It was no mere fanciful or theoretical measure, but was founded on the Report of a Royal Commission, consisting of very able men, and presided over by Sir George Clerk. The Bill introduced no new law in Scotland, because at present, by the common law of that country, it was illegal to traffic in anything whatever on Sunday; and it was only by a decision of the Court of Session, in 1832, that persons were relieved from the penalties which attached to any violation of that law. The Sunday clause was drawn up, he believed, by the Board of Inland Revenue, while the shebeen clause was copied, but with considerable modifications, from the Irish Shebeen Act.

On Question, Whether the words proposed to be left out shall stand part of the Motion? their Lordships divided:

rose.)
Granville, E.
Hardwicke, E.
Harrington, E.
Lonsdale, E.
Malmesbury, E.
Mayo, E.
Rosslyn, E.
Russell, E.
Selkirk, E.
Shaftesbury, E.
Shrewsbury, E.
Stanhope, E.
Vane, E.

Ponsonby, L. (E. Bess-
borough.)
Redesdale, L.

Rossie, L. (L. Kin-
naird.) [Teller.]

Sheffield, L. (E. Shef

field.)

Silchester, L. (E. Long

ford.)

Ston, L.
Stewart of Garlies, L.
(E. Galloway.)

Clancarty, V. (E. Clan Sundridge, L.
carty.)

De Vesci, V.
Doneraile, V.

Cleveland, D.

Airlie, E.

Argyll.) [Teller.] Tredegar, L. Wynford, L.

NOT-CONTENTS.

(D.

[blocks in formation]

Camperdown, E. [Tel Boyle, L. (E. Cork and
ler.]
Clarendon, E.
Cowper, E.
De Grey, E.
Grey, E.
Minto, E. [Teller.]
Saint Germans, E.
Lifford, V.

Overstone, L.

Stanley of Alderley, L.

Stratheden, L.

Talbot de Malahide, L.
Taunton, L.
Wodehouse, L.

Resolved in the Affirmative. The original Motion agreed to; the Amendments reported accordingly; Amendment moved and negatived; Amendments made; Bill to be read 3a on Thursday next; and to be printed as amended [Bill 122].

GAME LAWS, &c.-NIGHT POACHING.
MOTION FOR PAPERS.

LORD BERNERS rose to inquire if Her Majesty's Government are prepared to bring in any measure this Session to suppress the Evils of Night Poaching. He should on another occasion go into this question, but meanwhile he would remind their Lordships of the present prevalence of these offences and their great increase during the last year. He held in his hand a report of the number of poachers known to reside in the county of Leicester. The number was 927, of whom 144 had been convicted of felony, 54 had been charged with felony, and 525 had been previously convicted of poaching. By other returns from various counties it appeared that in the four months of the year from October 1st, 1860, to February 1st, 1861, there were twenty-nine murderous attacks upon keepers, 198 persons being concerned in those attacks; and in the three months from the 1st of October, 1861, to January, 1862, there were no fewer than 188 murderous attacks on keepers, 456 persons being engaged in them. Possibly these figures might not be quite correct; but at any rate, if they were even approximately correct, they showed a great increase in the prevalence of these crimes. It was against the privileges of this House to bring any arms into the House, but he had taken the liberty of putting in the robing-room two implements taken from poachers a short time since which would show how effective they were for the taking of game as well as for the destruction of life.

EARL GRANVILLE said, he was not able to give the noble Lord any other answer than that he had given a few nights ago, that it was not the intention of the Government to bring in a measure this Session for the suppression of night poaching, or for giving greater power to the police than they at present possessed with regard to poaching. He thought it was undesirable that the police should be made use of in the preservation of game, and it would be quite impossible that they should be so employed as to prevent attacks of this kind. With regard to the statistics which had been quoted by the noble Lord, it did not appear that persons engaged in poaching were habitually guilty of other crimes; for from a Return published by the other House he found that out of the whole number of persons convicted of

felony in England and Wales only one per cent had been previously convicted of offences against the game laws. This did not appear to coincide with the figures quoted by the noble Lord.

THE EARL OF DERBY said, he had listened with great regret to the answer of the noble Earl, and he assured the Government that this was not a question simply regarding the support or maintenance of the game laws, but that it was intimately connected with the peace of the rural districts and the amount of crime there. He could speak from his own experience on this point, having been obliged this year to prosecute to conviction three persons for murderous attacks upon his keepers. The weapons used were stones and pitchforks, and gangs of fourteen or fifteen persons were engaged in these attacks. One of the keepers was left for dead on the ground, and one of the poachers actually returned and stabbed him with a pitchfork as he was lying, in order to make his death more certain. The keeper, however, recovered from these dreadful injuries; but, he believed, the man who stabbed him was not ultimately convicted. The noble Earl said it was very undesirable that the police in counties should be mixed up with the preservation of game. Now, he did not wish that the police should be called upon to assist in the preservation of game, but he spoke with a knowledge of the facts when he said that in his own neighbourhood there were six or seven well-known and wellorganized gangs of men, who had plenty of honest employment if they wished as colliers and labourers they were not driven to poaching by necessity-but who preferred to collect in gangs of from six up to twenty men, armed with pitchforks and other weapons, and engage in night poaching. These men were well known to the police, who, if you mentioned one of their names, could tell you all his companions. They were often seen by the police with nets and with weapons, going out to engage in poaching. No possible doubt could exist as to their intentions, and the arms with which they were supplied showed that they were prepared to do something more than merely take game, and that they were also ready to take away life, if necessary, in the pursuit of game. In the morning they were again met by the police, laden with the produce of their night's toil. In one case which he had heard of, the poachers even had a

donkey cart, filled with rabbits, and they | amount of game. Not one in a hundred robbed an old woman's orchard of apples, of the poachers throughout the country with which they covered the rabbits in was driven to it by distress; but the order to conceal them. The police saw men taken up for poaching were mostly these men going out night after night and idle and drunken persons, who were not returning morning after morning; yet, as fit objects for the public commiseration the law now stood, or as the law was now that was often bestowed upon them. The interpreted, the police had no power to prevalence of gangs of this description stop these men, and there were no means had been attributed to over-preservation. of preventing the forcible taking of game He (the Earl of Derby) differed so far except by the use of corresponding force from that statement, that he felt satisfied on the part of the keepers. It was lament- that it was where preservation was only able that if a person wished to do that half carried out that poaching chiefly prewhich the law authorized him to do-keep vailed; and therefore persons who largely game upon his estate-he could do so by preserved, and had a large force of keepers, no other means than by maintaining in ran the risk of exposing their men to his employ a large armed force at the risk serious injury and loss of life, whereas of nightly encounters and loss of life. persons who preserved only moderately Now, if the simple course recommended gave encouragement to poachers to come by his noble Friend were adopted-if the upon their grounds. He felt sure that rural police were empowered to do what before long Her Majesty's Government the metropolitan police now did-stop would be called upon to provide a remedy persons on the high road who were in for evils which had now become intolerable. possession of goods, of whatever descrip- The noble Earl would not deny that Her tion, which were believed to have been Majesty's Government had received the unlawfully obtained, and compel the per- strongest representations from those most sons so stopped to account satisfactorily interested in the peace of the countryfor the possession of these goods, he ven- the heads of the constabulary and the tured to say that, with the knowledge rural police-not only as to the extent of which the police had of all the persons the evil, but as to its connection with connected with this trade persons who other crimes and irregularities in districts carried it on as a regular trade, and who where poaching prevailed. were in no distress whatever-nine-tenths of the poaching by armed gangs would be put a stop to. What was of more importance, also, was that the risk of constant encounters between armed bodies and those who were defending the property of their employers would be avoided. The noble Earl (Earl Granville) had alluded to the small number of poachers who had been convicted of other offences. He was not aware whence the noble Earl derived his information; but he was quite certain that throughout the country the general belief was, that persons who once took to poaching as a habit would not stop at poaching; and if they could not find game, the next thing they did was to steal poultry, and next break into houses. He believed that a vast number of petty robberies were committed by persons who in the first instance had connected themselves with these gangs; and he was satisfied that the measure which was in force in the metropolitan districts would, if extended to the rural districts, have a beneficial result upon the peace of the country -this being, as he said, of much greater importance than the preservation of any

[ocr errors]

THE EARL OF MALMESBURY need not say that he agreed in every word which had fallen from his noble Friend; and it was with the wish that this conviction should be forced upon their Lordships' attention by evidence that he now asked the question of which he had given notice, whether his noble Friend had any objection to the production of the Correspondence on the subject of Night Poaching that had taken place between the Secretary to the Home Department and the chief constables of counties in England? He understood that the chief constables had made a communication which was of great value; and he did not despair that the Government would sooner or later improve the law with respect to the preservation of game, by giving to the police in the county the same powers that they possessed in the metropolitan districts. His noble Friend opposite had said he did not think it desirable that the game laws should be carried out by the police hand-in-hand with the keepers, and in that he (the Earl of Malmesbury) perfectly agreed. But the police ought to have the same power that

they had now with regard to fisheries under the Salmon Fisheries Act which passed last year. That Act was now carried out by the agency of the police. There was no difference in principle between the preservation of fish and the preservation of game-both matters came under the same category; and therefore he did not think it was a good argument to say that the police should not interfere in the way proposed by his noble Friend behind him (Lord Berners), when they had been ordered to do so in the preservation of English fisheries.

LORD DELAMERE desired to draw their Lordships' attention to the fact that there were 270 new cases of poaching in the books of the Cheshire constabulary. Surely this was a case which required an immediate remedy. The law was broken, not by individuals for individual purposes, but by organized gangs, who subsisted by poaching, and this led to murderous conflicts. A remarkable document had been presented to the Government in the shape of a memorial, signed by twenty-eight chief constables of counties; and it was hard to over estimate the amount of col

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]
[ocr errors]

EAST GLOUCESTERSHIRE RAILWAY BILL. — CONTEMPT OF THIS HOUSE. THE DUKE OF RICHMOND rose to bring under their Lordships' notice a case of contempt of their Lordships' House. It had been proved, before the Select Committee on the East Gloucestershire Railand Preston, had obtained a great number way Bill, that two persons, named Isaacs of signatures to a Petition against the proposed railway by telling the individuals, whose signatures they sought, that the Petition was in favour of the railway. Those

box and examined, when their conduct was such as to leave little doubt on the minds of the Committee that neither of them was speaking the truth, and that they had procured signatures by the false pretence which he had described. The evidence taken by the Committee had been printed, in order to be laid before their Lordships, and he would therefore had named be ordered to attend at the now move that the two persons whom he Bar of their Lordships' House on Thursday next.

lateral crime and misery which resulted from the infraction of the game laws. Of the crime the report could speak; but of the misery, alas! no report existed; but there was no noble Lord, no landowner, who did not know the amount of wretch-two persons were placed in the witnessedness which arose from this single cause. Not only were the poachers themselves a miserable body of men, but they often involved their unfortunate wives and children in the results of their crimes. The daily infraction of law was admitted, and surely the Legislature was bound either to repeal the law or to take such means as would render that law effective. One course was to give power to compel people who had game in their possession to show that they came honestly by it; and another was to compel persons who dealt in game to keep books, like dealers in marine stores. These regulations would make the trade of poaching more risky and less profit- That William Isaacs, Clerk to Mr. Boodle, able, and in that proportion diminish crime. Solicitor at Cheltenham, and John Preston, Town EARL GRANVILLE was understood to Crier at Cheltenham, do attend at the Bar of this House on Thursday next, at Four o'clock, in say that there was no objection to pro-reference to their Conduct with regard to the duce the Correspondence asked for by the noble Earl. The figures he had quoted were taken from a Return that had been made to the House of Commons. The Government had no intention of opposing the introduction of the Bill referred to by the noble Lord (Lord Berners).

Ordered,

Signatures to the Petition of Barbara Robinson and others, of Cheltenham, presented on the 22nd of May last, praying to be heard by Coun sel against the East Gloucestershire Railway Bill.'

House adjourned at Eight o'clock, to Thursday next, half-past Ten o'clock.

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small]

Order for Committee read.
House in Committee.
Clauses 1 and 2 agreed to.

Clause 3 (Interpretation Clause).
MR. CRUM-EWING said, he wished to
move the insertion of words providing that
in any burghs in which commissioners of
the police were elected by occupiers of
land and premises of a yearly value below
£10, the word householder should mean a
male occupier of lands and premises of the
yearly value required in such burgh for the
election of police commissioners.
Amendment negatived.
Clause agreed to.

Clauses 4 to 14 also agreed to.

clauses; but some of its machinery was found difficult of adoption. The present Act was an improvement and consolidation of that measure. The Bill had been very carefully gone over, and he believed was generally approved by the Scotch boroughs. If the hon. Member objected to any of the clauses, he hoped he would state what those objections were to the Committee.

MR. DUNLOP said, he approved of the Bill generally, though he felt that some objections might be made to it. One of those objections was, that the £5 householders were not to have the right to vote.

SIR MICHAEL STEWART said, he believed the Bill had not yet been generally read in Scotland, and that as it became better understood, a strong opposition to it would arise.

MR. ELLICE (Kilmarnock) said, the Bill had been sent round to all the boroughs of Scotland, and he believed that no objection had been raised in any quarter to the Bill generally. There had been objections to matter of detail; but in most cases those objections had been met on representations being made to the Lord Advocate. On the whole, the Bill would prove of great advantage.

Clause agreed to; as were also Clauses

Clause 15 (Parties who may adopt 16 and 17. Act).

SIR MICHAEL STEWART said, he would take that opportunity of expressing his opinion of the general scope of the measure, to which he entertained strong objections. He believed, however, that the Bill would never pass into a law. He did not oppose going into Committee on it, because he feared he should not be sup ported. But some of the provisions of this Bill of nearly 500 clauses were monstrous; many of them were nonsensical. His main objection was that it tied hand and foot the proprietors of land and occupiers of houses, and placed them at the mercy of a body of commissioners and magistrates. The only hope was that those commissioners who had to carry the Act into effect would have the good sense not to put in force many of the clauses.

THE LORD ADVOCATE said, he could only account for the strong expressions of the hon. Member, by supposing that he had not read all the clauses of the Bill. The measure, he believed, would be fraught with the greatest benefit to Scotland in a sanitary point of view. A Police Act was passed in 1850, relating to the same matters; that Bill contained 350

Clause 18 (Where this Act adopted, other Acts repealed).

MR. CRAUFURD said, he had such a Member would move its omission he would strong objection to the clause, that if any support him.

THE LORD ADVOCATE said, the clause on the same subject in the Act of clause was precisely the same as the

1850.

Clause agreed to; as were also Clauses 19 to 83.

Clause 84 (Commissioners to make Police Assessment).

MR. BLACK said, he objected to the clause as it stood, as it would prevent the Bill working in Edinburgh. Under the existing system, the magistrates of Edinrate on rentals above £10, and a lower burgh were in the habit of levying one rate on rentals less than £10. The clause however, would compel them to levy the same rate upon all. He hoped, therefore, that the learned Lord Advocate would accept the following Amendment :

"Provided further, when in any burgh, under the provisions of any Police Act, a higher rate of assessment is now and has been in use to be

« PreviousContinue »