more vague than on almost any other question whatever. Lord Brougham suggested, that the committee should meet early on Thursday, in order to get through as much of the business as possible. The Lord Chancellor concurred in this, and named 11 o'clock as the hour at which the committee should meet. The Marquess of Clanricarde said, that as the bill was to have a retrospective effect, he should wish to see it have a more extensive range. He thought that everything possible should be done to prevent the most solemn of all contracts from being set aside by a quibble. Lord Campbell expressed a hope that the committee would be able, with very little delay, to prepare a prospective measure with respect to the law of marriages in Ireland. Bill read a second time and referred to the committee. of Bankrupts were paid by fees out of the bankrupt's estate, until the practice was altered by the bill brought in for that purpose by his noble and learned Friend (Lord Brougham) who then held the Great Seal. The expenses in lunacy cases were very great, and pressed heavily on the estates of that unhappy class of persons. As illustrations of the pressure of those fees, he would state the amount of those received by the commissioners in a few instances. In the case of Lord Portsmouth, which he would admit was an unusual one, and where there were six commissioners, instead of the ordinary number of three, the amount paid to those six commissioners was 1,0711. In the case of Mr. Davis, the amount which they received in fees where there were only three commissioners, was also 346l. 10s.; and in fact in this was 3464. 10s. In the case of Taylor it case the fees absorbed the whole of the unfortunate man's estate. In the recent case of Mr. Gundry the fees amounted to 2204., and in another case, which occurred in the country, and where there was only one commissioner, who sat four days, the fees amounted to 751. Such an amount of fees pressed, as he had said, very heavily on the estate of lunatics; so much so indeed, that where the estate was small the friends of the lunatic were afraid to apply to the Lord Chancellor, for they were well aware that the consequence of the lunacy commission would be to consume the estate, and the lunatic would be left without adequate protection as to person, and very little as to property. He had said, that many of those to whom commissions were directed in the country were quite inade AMENDMENT OF THE PROCEEDINGS IN LUNACY CASES.] The Lord Chancellor said, that pursuant to the notice he gave last night, he was about to lay upon the Table a bill to amend and improve the law, or rather the proceedings in cases of lunacy, and would in a few words endeavour to lay before their Lordships the general scope of his bill. In cases where amendments like the present were proposed, it was important to consider the actual state of the law, what were the evils to be remedied, and what the nature of the remedy proposed. As to the state of the law their Lordships were aware that there were certain standing commis-quate to the duties thus imposed on them; sioners to whom petitions in lunacy cases and it often happened that commissions were referred. Those commissioners were were quashed for irregularity. A new men most competent to the discharge of commission was to be issued, and thus the the duties confided to them, but their expense had to be incurred again. A case jurisdiction was limited to a distance not of this kind occurred with respect to a exceeding twenty miles from the metro-person named Holmes. The commission polis. Beyond that distance commissions was sent down, and as soon as it was rein lunacy cases were sent to persons of whom the Lord Chancellor had no knowledge, and who had little or no experience in such delicate matters, and hence some times arose serious mistakes, which entailed very considerable expense on the estates of the lunatics. He would now say a word as to how the expenses of those commissioners were defrayed. The commissioners were paid by fees, which were charged on the estates of the unfortunate lunatics. In the same way the Commissions turned it was, quashed for irregularity. Another commission was sent down, and the expense thus occasioned amounted to 5,2001., not including the fees before the master. His noble and learned Friend near him would see how absolutely necessary it was, that some remedy should be speedily applied to such evils as these. The remedy which he proposed in the bill to be laid on the Table was, to appoint two permanent commissioners, who would preside in cases of lunacy in town and also in the country. Those two, who would be men of ability and distinction at the bar, would be paid, not by fees, but by fixed salaries; and then there would be a fixed and regular system applying to all cases. But this was not all. At present lunacy cases were decided by a jury of twenty-four, as there must be the assent of twelve at least to make the inquisition, and return their verdict. These twenty-four jurors acted in the nature of a grand jury. They were paid one guinea per day each for each day the inquiry lasted, and he need not observe that this item of expenditure formed a very considerable portion of the expense of lunacy commissions. In the case of Lord Portsmouth the fees to the jury amounted to 4107. 11s.; in the case of Taylor, whose estate was a very small one, to 175l. In the case of Davenport the jury fees came to 3157.; and in that of Lady Kirkpatrick to 1931. When these were added to the very large amount paid to the commissioners, their Lordships would at once perceive the ruinous effect such a trial must have on a small estate. To diminish this expense as far as possible his bill proposed to vest in the Chancellor a discretionary power to have the case tried, in certain cases, with a jury of twelve, who need not be unanimous in their finding. This measure, therefore, would appoint two men of learning and distinction at the bar, who would attend to country as well as town cases, and it would enable the Chancellor in specific cases to lessen the number of jurymen. There was another point on which he proposed a change. It was well known that under the present system after the finding of the jury and the return of the commissioners there were certain inquiries to be made at the Masters' offices, and from information which he had received on the subject he learned that sometimes a year and a half elapsed from the report of the commissioners to the appointment of a committee to take care of the person and estate of the lunatic. In one case two years were allowed to elapse before the appointment of the committee. He proposed to remedy this, that the commissioners should have power to make inquiries as to the estate and effects of the lunatic, and such other matters as the Lord Chancellor should intrust them with, but if any difficulty should arise, the case should be referred to the Master, as at present. There was another subject on which he would say a word. There was an officer in the Court of Chancery called the Clerk of the Custodies, a very old and patent office, the occupant of which received large fees. In a bill which had been brought in on a former occasion by his noble and learned Friend (Lord Brougham) he tried to abolish that office; but it was found that this could not be done till the death or resignation of its present holder. He meant to propose, however, to abolish the office, the duties of which could be well performed by the Secretary of Lunatics, and he would have the Clerk of the Custodies receive compensation out of the suitors' fund in Chancery, the amount of the compensation to be fixed by the Master of the Rolls and the Vice-Chancellor. There was one other point on which he would say a word. His noble and learned Friend (Lord Brougham) had ap pointed visitors of lunatics; those visitors consisted of medical men, accompanied by a barrister, and he was happy to say, that that plan had worked admirably well. He would propose to make the two commissioners visitors ex officio, with power at any time to visit by themselves, or with the ordinary visitors, and he had no doubt it would be productive of much benefit. These were the general outlines of his bill. The details he would reserve for the committee, but in the meantime he would most gladly attend to any suggestion of his noble and learned Friends, by which his object might be better worked out. The noble and learned Lord then laid the bill on the Table. Lord Brougham said, he should gladly adopt some such measure as that now proposed by his noble and learned Friend. In the main he concurred with him, but he would rather reserve anything like detail to a future and more convenient stage. He was glad to know that the system of visiting had worked so well, and that the persons appointed to perform those duties had discharged them so faithfully. He had no objection to the abolition of the office of Clerk of the Custodies, but that, also, he would defer any observation upon to a future stage. Lord Cottenham would not then discuss the details of the measure, but if he understood his noble and learned Friend rightly, that his two commissioners were to be alike for town and country, and were to range all over England, he thought their jurisdiction was too extensive, and that it would be impossible they could perform the duties required of them. had hoped rather, that his noble and He learned Friend would have adopted the plan of founding local jurisdictions for general purposes, and transferring to those jurisdictions, as he had proposed the inquiries under country commissioners. With respect to taking away the inquiries into the estate of the lunatic, and the appointment of the committees from the Master's office, he very much doubted its propriety. Few inquiries were more important, or more peculiarly delicate, than those relating to lunatics; and unless some very good reason were given he could not assent to depriving of their jurisdiction those who had always been in the habit of exercising it. As to the abolition of the office of Clerk of the Custodies, that was desirable, but he could not consent, nor did he see how their Lordships could consent to the payment of lunacy commission out of the fee fund of the Court of Chancery. The suitors fund arose from suits in Chancery, and he did not see how their Lordships could deprive the suitors of any part of that fund for the purpose of making up the deficiency of fees in lunacy. It was not just, nor was he aware, that the suitors' fund could very well bear it. in lunacy, than in taking it, as was every day done, from one suit in Chancery, and applying it to the purposes of another? Lord Campbell wished to ask if the two commissioners were to sit together or separately. He thought one enough. If two were to sit it would add to the expense. The Lord Chancellor: That could not be, since the commissioners would be paid by salaries, and not by fees. Generally speaking, he proposed, that only one commissioner should sit, but in cases of great importance both would sit. Lord Campbell: And in case of division of opinion between them? The Lord Chancellor: In that case there was a provision in the bill to enable the Chancellor to have another commissioner. This was a power which had always been exercised by the Chancellor in commissions of lunacy, and in the case of Lord Portsmouth, no less than six were appointed, over whom Mr. Baron Hullock, just before he was made a Judge, presided. LAW OF EVIDENCE.] Lord Denman rose to move the second reading of a bill The Lord Chancellor observed, that his which he had laid on the Table of the noble and learned Friend seemed to think House, and which involved matter of very that the control of lunatics' affairs should great importance as regarded the adminisnot be taken from the Masters in Chancery, tration of justice, on a subject in which as he feared that such an arrangement those persons who had the best right to would be injurious to lunatics, as the form a judgment, had been strongly imaffairs would not be under the revision of pressed with the propriety of introducing the Court of Chancery; but his noble and the change which he ventured to propose. learned Friend seemed to forget that the Lord Mansfield, and many other learned proceedings of the commissioners would be judges since his time, had felt the inconsubject to revision, in the same manner as venience of the law which prevented the those of the Masters, by the Lord Chancel-admission of witnesses on the ground of lor. With respect to the resources from whence the remuneration was to be derived, he would remind his noble and learned Friend, that the suitors' fund in Chancery was as much from the accumulations from the estates of lunatics as from other persons, suitors in that court. He thought, that a fund so created might be charged with the expenses of this plan, by which the estates of these unhappy sons would be relieved from heavy charges to which they were now liable. being interested, holding the doctrine that all persons, whether interested or not, should be allowed to give their evidence, and that the jury should estimate its value. From a sense of the evil of exclusion, judges had been led to evade the operation of the existing law, and doubts were thus raised, and difficulties created, which increased litigation to an per-incredible extent. He believed, that there was hardly a book of reports which did not contain cases of the kind, in which the expenses of the suitors must have been enormous, independent of the delay. Nice questions perpetually arise in the course of a trial, on which the opinion of the court above must be taken; the action is thus rendered more expensive, the final decision is indefinitely delayed, and the consequent embarrassment of justice both Lord Cottenham said, that so far as the estates of lunatics contributed, he had no objection; but to go beyond that point he considered unjust. Lord Brougham begged to ask his noble and learned Friend, what greater harm there was in taking a sum from the general suitors fund, and applying it to purposes to the immediate parties, and to others his testimony. He submitted, that this who must wait till former cases are dis- was a state of things which should not posed of, is a serious public calamity. be; but that there should be certainty He thought, that he need hardly say more in the state of the law. He proposed in recommendation of this part of the mea- that the testimony of convicts should sure, as he was authorised to say, that it not be excluded; but that it should be received the direct sanction of several of left to the jury for their consideration. his learned brethren on the bench, and he But there is one class, where exclusion is had heard no objections stated to it by any defended on some plausible ground, and of them. With regard to the second pur- there appears to be a peculiar propriety in pose of the bill, the doubts were greater. resorting to it. He meant the class of Their Lordships were aware, that persons persons previously convicted of perjury. convicted of certain crimes, had their lips It might be thought, that after a person closed in a court of justice to the end of had been convicted of giving false testitheir days, if their evidence was objected mony in a court of justice, he should be to in a formal manner. This class of incapacitated from ever giving evidence persons included those convicted of felonies again. In this case, also, the law is equally and certain misdemeanours, and, how-anomalous as with respect to other crimes, ever necessary the evidence of such persons might be for the ends of justice, they could not disclose what they knew. He would venture to say, that not a single court of Assizes would be held during the present month, in which some case would not occur, where a witness would be put into the witness-box covered with crime, and who admitted, that he had been a party to the commission of the greatest enormities, and whose appearance there might prove him the worst of all offenders, -namely, the betrayer of his associates, their tempter to commit the crime which he came forward to denounce; and yet upon the faith of such a man might the liberty and life of the accused depend. In such a case, the mere commission of the crime did not exclude the criminal from the witness-box: on the contrary, it was the sole reason for placing him there. Nor did his confession of former crimes of even deeper dye exclude him; no, not his confession that he had been tried, convicted, and punished for such crimes; but he might be at once put to silence by the prisoner's attorney producing the record of any former conviction. But the law is whimsical in this matter: for if the convict should have obtained a pardon, (which may be done without much difficulty) the effect of the conviction is removed, and he becomes again an admissible witness. It is plain, therefore, that according to the present law, the competency does not depend on the only thing that could with the least show of reason affect it, the guilt of the party; and that whether he is to be received or not depends on chance, or probably on the pecuniary means of those who have an interest in the admission or rejection of for unless the record of the conviction for perjury can be produced in court, his evidence could not be rejected. But ought even this man to be rejected, when the record is produced? The punishment of excluding him did not fall on himself, but on innocent parties. He might be in the possession of the most important facts, the knowledge of which was essential to the elucidation of truth, to the conviction of guilt, and to the acquittal of innocence. He may be desirous to suppress the truth which he knows, but the party to whom it is favorable, and the public, have the deepest interest in the disclosure. Therefore, the evidence of such persons should not be disallowed and altogether repudiated; but should be laid before the jury, who would take the attending circumstances of the case into considerationthe probable motives of the witness-his conduct since his former conviction-the probability of his statement-the confirmation or contradiction to be derived from others. It was supposed, that the incapacity arising from a previous conviction was seldom, if ever, enforced. But the nonexecution of a bad law is never a good reason against its repeal; as long as it exists it may become operative, and that in cases where all mankind are scandalized by its injustice and inexpediency, this law is not obsolete, though its application is rare, for a case in the Court of Queen's Bench only in the last term, exemplified in a remarkable manner that the rule may be enforced, and may lead to striking injustice. A gentleman called upon an attorney to account for some large sums of money which had passed through his hands in the course of several years. The attorney had had the management of this gentleman's affairs, and he was called upon to answer to support it. As far as he had been able the affidavit of his client. The attorney to obtain the opinion of Westminster-hali, accordingly put in an affidavit, accom- they corresponded to a considerable extent panied with the affidavit of a person who with those of his noble and learned Friend. had acted as that gentleman's steward, It was proper that the bill should be read with whom his account of these disburse- a second time and go into committee; at ments appeared to have been regularly the same time, as the responsibility of such kept, and the latter admitted that he had a measure must rest with the Government, received such money, and had duly account- he hoped that his noble Friend would not ed for it. The client who had brought the go into committee till after they should, attorney criminally before the court, to an- upon a measure of such importance, have swer for this supposed malversation, then been able to obtain all the experience produced a record of conviction for perjury which Westminster-hall could afford. He of the person whom he himself had em- agreed with his noble Friend, that ever ployed as his steward, and the attorney was since the time of Lord Mansfield, the better thus deprived of his testimony. He thought opinion had been that the witness should he had shown that the law was incapable be heard, and that the jury or the tribunal of uniform application, and that in a vast should decide upon the full case, taking his variety of instances, it could not be applied credit into consideration. It was imposat all; yet no one sought to remedy this sible to take the existing law into conimperfection. This appeared, then, a fair sideration without discovering its many test of the general opinion being against the absurdities. Persons convicted of a felony present law. The alteration of the law in were not permitted to give evidence, bethese two particular cases of disqualification cause it was thought that this was a punformed the chief object of his proposed bill; ishment justly inflicted upon them for but he had also introduced two points of their crime, whereas, in point of fact, the minor importance; but still, as he thought punishment did not fall upon the party deserving attention and requiring amend- who had committed the crime, but upon ment. Several Baptists had, from time to the party needing his evidence. Again, time, urged upon their Lordships the mark the distinction now drawn by the propriety of being admitted to the same law-a person convicted of stealing to an privileges as Quakers and Moravians, amount which constituted petty larceny, and, objecting to an oath, to be per- might be received as an evidence, but one mitted to take an affirmation. The convicted of stealing to an amount to con◄ whole of the Baptists did not enter-stitute grand larceny could not be adtain these scruples, but many did. He mitted; so that whether a party was to be believed many of their Lordships had felt admitted, or was not to be admitted to an objection to a wider measure, though give evidence, depended upon whether he Parliament would, doubtless, make ample had stolen to the amount of 12d. or of concession to the scruples of particular 14d. What could be more absurd than sects. The last clause of his bill was to this? Again, a man might be convicted remove a doubt which had arisen whether, of manslaughter; he might have carelessly in legal proceedings, it was necessary to driven over a child, yet he was not comdistinguish, in describing the acts of the petent to be heard as a witness. Did the grand jury and the petty jury, that some fact that he had been guilty of carelessness took the oath and others affirmed. In impeach the value of his testimony? But drawing up the record, a multiplicity of what happened afterwards? If he had words would be thrown away, if this were gone through his punishment, he became required, on the doubt raised, whether a witness; was he more worthy of credit the proceedings were well set out, and after he had undergone his punishment justice might be defeated by the opinion than before? He recollected the case of adopted on a matter purely technical. He Lord Warwick: a question arose whether proposed, therefore, to dispense with this a party had been burnt in the hand; if he necessity; if they did not pursue one form had been burnt in the hand, his evidence or another. These were the provisions of would have been received, otherwise not. his bill, and he now moved that it be read What could be more absurd than this disa second time. tinction? It was said, that the evidence was rejected because the party was not entitled to credit, and, therefore, ought not to be a witness. He denied that this was The Lord Chancellor did not rise to oppose the second reading of this bill; on the contrary, he was very much disposed |