net to say) that those engineers had made their Reports to the Navy Commissioners, who would also make a Report to the Government upon that branch of the subject. Sir Charles Napier was desirous of asking whether it was the intention this year to organize the coast-guard and fishermen along the coast, in the same manner as had been done in former days, in order that they might be ready to act in defence of our coasts in case of any sudden emergency? He looked upon this as a matter of great importance. We understood the hon. and gallant Officer to suggest, that in addition to the returns made by all the Government steamers, there should be obtained a statement of all the merchant steamers belonging to this country. He thought an arrangement might be easily made with the various steam companies, by which such information might be obtained. Sir Robert Peel said, the matter was one which had not escaped the attention of the Government. He concurred in the opinion that the coast guard might be made an efficient force in case of necessity. Report received. way; Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway; Waterford and Kilkenny Railway; Newcastle and Darlington (Branding Junction) Railway; Southampton and Dorchester Ral way; Lancaster and Carlisle Railway; Hartlepool Per and Port. PETITIONS PRESENTED. From Landowners and others of Sheffield, against the Sheffield Waterworks Bill-By Duke of Buccleuch, from Presbytery of Selkirk, against the Universities (Scotland) Bill.-From Cork, for Amendment of Law whereby Rural Districts in Ireland attached to certain Boroughs are partially annexed to adjoining Counties. From Merchants and others of Armagh, against the Banking (Ireland) Bill. Lord RAILWAY AND OTHER BILLS.] Brougham moved the Order of the Day for taking into consideration the Resoluof which he had given notice. [These tions relating to Railway and other Bilis Resolutions will be found, as amended, in the Report of July 3rd.] their Lordships ought not to pass the The Lord Chancellor suggested that Resolutions until they saw what Resolutions were agreed to by the House of Commons. He was decidedly of opinion that the House should proceed by Resolution. for the House of Commons, the House of Lord Brougham said, that if they waited Commons would say they waited for the Lords; and so the Resolutions would fall to the ground. If the Crown were advised not to prorogue Parliament, but to House adjourned at half-past one let both Houses adjourn from time to o'clock. HOUSE OF LORDS, Tuesday, July 1, 1845. time, there would be no difficulty, as the Bills would be in statu quo when business was resumed. It was not only perfectly competent for the Crown to take MINUTES.] BILLS. Public.—1a. Dog Stealing; Statute the course he had suggested, but it had Labour (Scotland). 2. Courts of Common Law Process; Court of Session 3 and passed:-Outstanding Terms; Public Museums; Private.-1 Runcorn and Preston Brook Railway. 2. Marquess of Donegal's Estate; Keyingham Drainage; Belfast Improvement; Manchester and Birmingham Rail been done more than once. PUBLIC MUSEUMS, &C., BILL.] Lord Wharncliffe moved the Third Reading of he Museums, &c., Bill. Lord Brougham expressed his dissatisfaction with the Bill in its amended state. Lord Campbell approved of the Bill way (Ashton Branch); Lynn and Dereham Railway; It was intended to remedy a defect in the London and Brighton Railway (Horsham Branch); Londonderry and Enniskillen Railway; North Wales Mineral Railway; Chester and Birkenhead Railway Extension; Cornwall Railway; Ashton, Stalybridge, and Liverpool Junction (Ardwick and Guide Bridge Branches) Railway; and Altrincham Railway; Bristol and Exeter Railway Branches; Dublin and Drogheda Railway; Eastern Reported.-Manchester, Bury, and Rossendale Railway Union Railway Amendment. (Heywood Branch); Whitehaven and Furness Railway; Eastern Union (Bury St. Edmund's) Railway; Dundalk and Enniskillen Railway; North Woolwich Railway; Guildford Junction Railway; Winwick Rectory; Glas gow, Paisley, Kilmarnock, and Ayr Railway (Cumnock Branch). 3. and passed :-Gildart's (or Sherwen's) Estate; Manchester Improvement; Bridgewater Navigation and Rail existing law. The Lord Chancellor said, as he read the Bill, a person laying his finger upon a plaster-cast in a shop window would come within the provisions of the Bill, and might be liable to two years' imprisonment, hard labour, and private whipping. Lord Brougham: The punishment was the same as inflicted for felonies of the highest character. He was perfectly astonished at such a Bill coming from the Commons. Lord Campbell said, if the Bill were worded as the noble and learned Lord stated, it had been incautiously worded by the Government in the other House of Parliament, where it had been introduced by the Solicitor General. The Lord Chancellor: I see very little trace of the Bill as it left the House of Commons in the Bill now upon the Table; it has been altogether new modelled under the superintendence of my noble and learned Friend. Let it be imprisonment for three months, and say nothing of hard labour; surely that is imprisonment enough. Lord Brougham: Without hard la bour. The penalty finally agreed upon was imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months, with hard labour or private whipping. The Bill read 3a time. HOUSE OF COMMONS, Tuesday, July 1, 1845. MINUTES.] NEW WRIT. For Exeter, v. Sir William Webb "That the Resolution- That no private Bill for the construction of Railways, or other Public Works, to which the consent of the Admiralty is required, will be committed, until the decision of the Admiralty shall be communicated to the House,' be made a Standing Order." Lord G. Somerset thought the House ought not to agree to this proposition, because it was, in fact, asking the House to suspend its proceedings until a Government Board gave its opinion on the railway schemes brought before it. This was the most extraordinary proposition he had ever heard. ever heard. Certainly the Committees had the means of arriving at a more correct estimate of the value of the Bills before them than the Board of Admiralty could possibly have. He was quite opposed to the Motion of the hon. and gallant Mem ber. Mr. Warburton did not see why the House should be precluded from going into the evidence on any railway project. until they had received the consent of the Board of Admiralty. Captain Berkeley replied: His argument was, that the Admiralty should have NEW MEMBER SWORN. Sir John Hope, Bart., for Edin- the power of protecting the public, and burghshire. BILLS. Public.-10. Charitable Trusts; Courts. Private.-19. Ellison's Estate. 2o. Heaviside's Divorce. Ecclesiastical Reported.-Coventry, Bedworth, and Nuneaton Railway; Duddeston and Nechell's Improvement (No. 2). 3o. and passed ;-Runcorn and Preston Brook Railway; Newport and Pontypool Railway. PETITIONS PRESENTED. By Viscount Adare, and Sir E. Hayes, from several places, for Encouragement to Schools in connexion with Church Education Society (Ireland). By Mr. Ellice, from several places, for Better Observance of the Lord's Day. By Viscount Adare, from Archdeacon and Clergy of Llandaff, against Union of St. Asaph and Bangor.-By Mr. Ewart, from Dumfries, in favour of from J. T. Perceval, against Lunatics Bill.-By Sir H. Surgery Bill.-By Mr. Villiers, from Members of the from Fintona, in favour of Physic and Surgery Bill.By Mr. E. Ellice, from several places, for Alteration of Poor Law Amendment (Scotland) Bill.-By Sir E. Hayes, from Board of Guardians of Stranorlar Union, for Relief from Payment of Loan (Poor Relief (Ireland) Act).-By individuals also; and he would give the House an illustration. Supposing an individual had a right to a ferry over a navigable river, and that a projected bridge would destroy his interests, as well as the navigation of that river. He was too poor to prosecute an opposition before that House, but he memorialised the Board of Admiralty, and they took measures for that purpose. He should take the sense of the House on the subject. The House divided: Ayes 22; Noes 70: Majority 48. R MY ENLISTMENT.] Captain Layard rose to move "That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that She will be graciously pleased to direct inquiry to be made how far the reduction of the period of service in the Army, from the present unlimited term to ten years, would tend to procure a better class of recruits, diminish desertion, and thus add to the efficiency of the Service." Mr. Ewart, from Old Meldrum, for Diminishing the The hon. and gallant Member said that in Number of Public Houses. bringing under the consideration of the House so important a Motion as the present, he trusted he might venture to claim its kind indulgence and patient attention; an indulgence which he felt would be re- [ impaired constitution. Young lads rarely quired for the weakness of the advocate; enlisted from a decided predilection for a an attention which was demanded for the military life; this irretrievable and imimportance of the cause. It was no hastily portant step was commonly taken in conformed opinion that he had come to in sequence of some sudden thought, or fit believing that a limited service of ten of passion, occasioned by a domestic years, instead of the present enlistment broil, chagrin, disappointment, inebriety, for life, would not only materially benefit or want of work, or indigence; and perthe service, but the country, as by that haps a few were excited to take the shilmeans, he felt assured, a much superior ling, the symbol of enlistment, by the class of men would be found to enlist, finesse of a recruiting sergeant. They and, consequently, less crime of every de- figured to themselves in their youthful scription would be committed, but parti- fancies a thousand occasions of acquiring cularly desertion, the greatest military honour and distinction which never occrime of which a soldier could be guilty. curred. These romantic hopes make the He thought the best way of bringing this whole price of their blood. Their pay subject more fully under consideration was less than that of common labourers; was to divide it into different classes; and on actual service their fatigues were first, the impolicy of the present system, far greater. Hurried away by the imand the dislike evinced towards it, not petuosity of youth, he was not aware of only by the soldier, but by the country at the consequence of his engagement, and large, and the crime and punishment to it appeared an anomaly in the law of the which it led; and, secondly, the argu- country that while a young man was incaments which might be brought against li- pacitated for making a will, so as to dismited enlistment, which arguments he pose of real or even personal property trusted he should be enabled successfully before he had reached twenty-one years to combat. When we took under consid- of age, he was, nevertheless, permitted to eration the great extent of territory, and surrender his liberty for life. He trusted the millions who acknowledged the sway the House would permit him to read one of the British Crown, and then remem- or two extracts from that excellent work bered the smallness of the force by which on the enlistment, discharging, and penthe peace and integrity of that vast Em- sioning of soldiers, by Henry Marshall, pire is to be maintained, it struck him that deputy-inspector of military hospitals, a some alteration ought to be made in the work strongly advocating limited enlistformation of that army, from which, by ment, and dedicated to Sir Henry Harreturns he held in his hand, he found the dinge, by whom it had been suggested in desertions in the last three years in Ca- March, 1828. The first he would read nada, Great Britain, and Ireland, where was the following:certainly not one half of our military force "E. Pigott was enlisted in the East India was employed, to be 7,537. 4,638 of these Company's service; he was transferred to deserters had been either retaken or had Cork, where self-made ulcers appeared on his given themselves up, still that left 2,899 legs, and when this scheme failed in procuring unaccounted for; and when he referred In September he arrived in Chatham, when he his discharge, he seemed to become an idiot. to a Return which had been moved for by had the aspect of a genuine idiot. He was the hon. Member for Montrose, he found, placed under observation for five weeks, durthat from the 1st January, 1839 to the ing which period he never uttered a word dis31st December, 1843, 3,355 men had tinctly. His looks were wild, his manners undergone corporal punishment, and that almost savage. He appeared to have lost all 28,190 had undergone imprisonment. regard to decency, and became perfectly helpThere could be little doubt that a great like a child. He refused to take food when less; for he required to be washed and dressed portion of the men composing that army offered him; but, if it was set by him, he dehad bitterly repented of unlimited en-voured it clandestinely, and occasionally would listment. No one could doubt that the people of this country had the strongest objection to their sons entering the army; and well they might have, for when a man once enlisted, under the present system, he was lost to his family, and never could return, except, indeed, with a broken and neglect it for a whole day. He was at first treated with great kindness; but, after some time, he became ferocious, and endeavoured to bite the orderlies, and used missiles, so that strait waistcoat. On the 3rd November he it was deemed necessary to confine him in a was examined by a board of medical officers, who stated that in their opinion Pigott was a most determined malingerer, and affects insanity, and from his worthless character recommended his discharge. When his discharge reached Chatham, he seemed incapable of comprehending what it meant; it was repeatedly read to him with care and attention, he was told he might return to Ireland, but he seemed to pay no attention nor to understand what was said to him. On the 29th November, Dr. Davies applied to have him sent to the Military Lunatic Asylum at Fort Clarence, and Dr. Davies gave it as his opinion that he was not a decided malingerer, on the contrary, he says, I am inclined to believe that there has been throughout, and there certainly is now, a reality in the affliction. Weeks elapsed without any improvement, he was troublesome and outrageous. On the 12th of January, 1829, he was transferred to Fort Clarence; when he arrived he would neither stand nor speak; he lay with his legs doubled up, and his knees approaching his chest. When questioned, he sometimes emitted a hollow groan, He was rapidly and forcibly conveyed by a long subterraneous passage to the extremity of the establishment, where he was exposed to a shower-bath, well washed, and dressed in the hospital uniform. Owing to the gloomy appearance of the asylum, and the unceremonious manner in which he was treated, Pigott, no doubt, became greatly alarmed; he was placed in the whirling chair, which ultimately determined him to give in; he stated his disability was feigned, and detailed a course of the most persevering and determined fraud ever practised. On the 4th of March, one year from the time he enlisted, he was marched from Fort Clarence to the dépôt of the East India Company, perfectly sound in mind and body. The same night he joined the dépôt he deserted; but was secured next day, after a stout resistance, and finally sailed for Madras on the 7th of March." This was one of hundreds of instances of what men would endure to escape from a service which they detested, on account of its duration. To prove the horror which many parents felt at their sons enlisting, he could not forbear quoting one instance of which many were on record. It was from the United Service Gazette of the 12th of November, 1837. An account was given there of a widow, at Long Ashford, whose son having enlisted, had afterwards, with great difficulty, obtained his release. He frequently threatened to take the same step again. The mother, assisted by her daughter, to prevent the execution of this threat, took the following fearful step! When he was drunk and asleep, the daughter placed the forefinger of his right hand on a block, and the mother chopped it off. Suicide was much more frequent among soldiers than among men of the same age and rank in civil life; the ratio of cases of self-murder among the cavalry branch of the service has been found to amount for a series of years to one suicide out of twenty deaths, or nearly one annually per 1,000 of the strength. This statement does not give the number who attempted suicide, but only where the result was fatal. Sir Henry Hardinge stated before the Commissioners on Military Punishments, that soldiers commonly maimed themselves to obtain their discharge, and even to become convicts. At one time three hundred men of two regiments attempted to destroy their eyesight, in order to procure their discharge. For his part, he could imagine nothing more trying to any man, when he life he had bound himself to the exactionce began to reflect, than to find that for tude of military discipline. He knew it might be argued a very considerable expense would be entailed by any number of men abroad requiring to be sent home at the end of their service; but when it was taken into consideration that men after ten years' service were to have no pensions, he believed that so far from adding to the expense of the country, a very material saving would be effected; and he believed the saving would be so great, that it would enable the Government to grant a suitable pension to those who should re-enlist and faithfully perform twenty-one years' service. It likewise might be argued, that a large number of men abroad, at the same time claiming their discharge, might make the army inefficient; but that would be obviated by taking care that the 10 per cent., which was allowed for India, and the three per cent. for the other regiments abroad, above the effective strength, would enable the dépôts to keep those men at home who were near the period of their discharge. He would be told how little advantage was taken by men of limited service before, and which ceased by order of Lord Hill in 1829. His answer to this was, that the bounty for unlimited service was 17s. more than it was for limited, and that men in that situation seldom or ever calculated on the future; that it was the duty of a paternal Government not to make a hard or cruel bargain with any class of men, however inconsiderate they might be. Soldiers might obtain their discharge under the following regulations, but could not claim it. But, in his opinion, these regulations in many instances were highly objectionable, from the high rate which a recruit had to pay in the earlier periods of service, and thereby putting it out of the power of many, and the very inadequate remuneration he received for that service at a later period. The regulation was as follows: Period. Cavalry. Infantry. Under 7 years' £. £. service 30 20 After 7 ditto 25 18 10 21 15 12 د, 33 17", 18 21 6 5 Free discharge at home, and in addition, three months' Free discharge Free discharge, and, in ad. dition, three months' pay pay abroad. at home, and six abroad Free discharge. Free discharge, and six and 3 months' months' pay at home, and pay one year's pay abroad Free discharge, Free discharge, one year's 6 months' pay pay at home, and one- To refer to the opinion given by many officers who were examined before the Commission on Military Punishment, that gallant officer, Sir Octavius Carey, said "Nothing can be worse than the materials of which the Army is composed, I do not mean that they are all bad men, but a great portion are taken from the worst ranks; they enlist from necessity alone." Sir Archibald Campbell, who had served forty-five years, said, in reply to the question of the Constitution. He trusted that the "Do you think if the soldier was enlisted for a more limited period it would tend to promote recruiting ?-Yes, I found men who enlisted for limited service the best men, and I was always anxious for them to re-enlist-tained the honour and glory of their they came from a better class of society." Lord William Bentinck, in reply to the inquiry "If giving commissions to privates would improve the description of recruit?" said, "All improvements in the service would facilitate recruiting. We should get a better description of men." He country, to a hopeless existence. He feared he might tire the House by giving these extracts; but he must give the opinion of one, the soundness of whose judgment all must respect, the late gallant Lord Lynedoch. He thought enlistment for a limited period well calculated to obtain a better order of recruits, and to remove many causes which led to severe and ignominious punishments, so desira-things seriously into consideration. He ble to abolish; and Mr. Fox stated, on the 3rd of April, 1806, that he thought enlistment for life unsuited to the genius might refer to Mr. Wyndham's speeches, and the debates which took place on former occasions; but he would not |