the discussion will take place. Our readers will recollect that this Bill was introduced by Sir Robert PEEL in the House of Commons, on the principle of revising, consolidating, and ameliorating the laws relative to a crime which,

LIST of the MINORITY of 138, who voted on Monday, the 7th of June, 1830, against abolishing the PUNISHMENT of DEATH in all cases of FORGERY, except the Forgery of Wills.

though of great moral guilt, and of pernicious consequences, has been visited with such disproportionate severity by a multiplicity of penal statutes, as to prevent, in a great measure, their own execution. It was admitted by the Right Honourable Secretary, on moving for leave to bring in his Bill, that the legislature, in treating of this offence, from the eighth year of the reign of King William III. to the present day, had added upwards of sixty capital enactments to the Statute-book; thus including a multitude of offences, coming within the definition of forgery, of various degrees of moral and social delinquency, under the one sweeping denunciation of death!

The feelings of society have long been disgusted with the spectacles of extermination which these laws have produced. The repeated executions, some years ago, for the forgery of one-pound notes, in consequence of prosecutions by the Bank of England, are fresh in the recollection of the public, who saw, at that time, that the crime, instead of being repressed, became alarmingly more frequent,* as one batch of victims after another was offered up to the vengeance of the law! These executions only ceased when the small notes were withdrawn from circulation,-so much stronger was the temptation to the crime than the terror of the punishment. ***

Upwards of two hundred petitions, we must again remind the supporters of exterminating statutes, have been *See Notes, page 11, et seq.

Tunno, E. R.
Van Homrigh, P.
Walrond, Bethel
Wetherell, Sir C.
White, Henry
Whitmore T.
Wilson, R. F.
Wood, Col. T.
Wortley, Hon. J. S.
Tellers.

+Dawson, G. R.
Sugden, Sir E. B.

Paired off.

Arbuthnot, Hon. H.

Bernard, Thomas
Bright, Henry
Belfast, Lord
Beresford, Sir J.
Carmarthen, Lord
Cooke, Sir H. F.
Corry, Hon. Henry
Croker, Rt. Hon. J. W.
Dalrymple, Sir H.
Dundas, Hon. H.
Gower, Lord L.
Howard, Hon. H.
Hay, Lord John
Knox, Hon. T.

Lowther, Col.
Osborne, Lord F.
Pringle, Sir W. H.
Peel, Col. J.

Phipps, Hon. Gen.
Roberts, W. A.
Rochfort, Col. G.
Smith, Christopher
Stewart, Sir M. S.
Trench, Col.

Vivian, Sir R. H., Bart.
Valletort, Lord

Williams, Owen
Wilson, Col.

+ Mr. George R. DAWSON voted in the MINORITY, notwithstanding he was one of the London Directors of the Provincial Bank of Ireland, who, at a meeting specially convened, unanimously agreed to petition against the capital law of forgery. It is true their petition was never presented; but this is a circumstance which requires explanation. We are in possession of the singular facts of the case.

presented to the legislature in the present Session, praying for the abolition of capital punishment for forgery, on the various grounds-that it is opposed to revealed religion-to reason to the natural sentiments of humanity—and to public opinion; that it is, in consequence of its extreme severity, of uncertain execution, thereby encouraging crime, by holding out the hopes of impunity to the offender, and, consequently, rendering peculiarly insecure the property which it was intended to protect.

But, in addition to this mass of petitions, to which appeared the signatures of bankers, merchants, clergymen, magistrates, barristers, solicitors, and private gentlemen, was one petition which afforded the best evidence that could be given to parliament touching the single point of the insecurity of bankers' property, in consequence of the cruelty of the law producing a conscientious disinclination to prosecute offenders.

This petition was presented by Mr. BROUGHAM.-By whom was it signed? By one thousand bankers! What was the language which they addressed to the legislature? Here it is-That your petitioners, as bankers, are deeply interested in the protection of property from forgery, and in the conviction and punishment of persons guilty of this crime that your petitioners find, by experience, that the infliction of death, or even the probability of the infliction of death, prevents the prosecution, conviction, and punishment of the criminal, and thus endangers the property which it was intended to protect-that your petitioners therefore pray that your Honourable House will not withhold from them that protection which they would derive from a more lenient law.'

Here, in the simple and forcible language of truth, gathered from long experience, is the appeal to parliament of one thousand bankers of the United Kingdom, supplicating for the abolition of the capital law of forgery, on the interested principle of the insecurity of their property

under the existing laws. Such are the witnesses-such the evidence!

Leaving religion and all moral and humane considerations out of view, here is the testimony of cold, and even selfish, calculation. It shews the injurious consequences resulting from the present state of the law in a commercial point of view. Bankers do not theorize for the sake of humanity, to their own pecuniary prejudice; nor are they exactly the class of men who prefer "sentiment" to self-interest. It happens, however, in this case, that their particular interests coincide with the view of this question, which is derived from the higher considerations of religion, reason, and humanity.

Can the legislature refuse to listen to the evidence of those who know the working of the law best-whose property is most affected by its operation-and whose demand of an efficient law to guard their property against depredation, goes, not to destroy, but to save the lives of men?—The House of Commons have listened to their appeal-they have decided in favour of the calculations of commerce; and the rights of humanity equally demand it.

We hope those who have hitherto opposed the mitigation of the criminal code in the other House, will recollect that this is not a question of politics, in which men may safely indulge in speculative opinions even against the sense of a great proportion of the community; but that it is a question of justice, and that life is at stake. In such a question, an error on the side of humanity is easily recalled, while, on the opposite side, it is irreparable.

The vote of the House of Commons is now on the records of history, and will assuredly, one day or other, if defeated now, become the law of the land. But we will not anticipate a decision this evening that would severely disappoint the country; we would rather encourage the hope that the House of Lords will make the inchoate triumph of civilized law over cruel prejudices complete, and accede to

the earnest supplication of practical men, backed by the highest considerations that can operate on the minds of dispassionate and enlightened legislators.-Morning Herald, Tuesday, June 22, 1830.

Committal of the Bill in the Lords.

It was arranged some days ago that the House of Lords was to go into Committee on the Forgery Bill to-night. We know not whether, under the existing state of things,* that intention will be proceeded with. If the House should go into Committee, the Lord Chancellor will state his objections to some clauses in the Bill, and endeavour to convince the House that the punishment of death ought to be retained, in certain instances, in which the House of Commons have, after two or three discussions, and the most deliberate consideration, decided that it ought to be abolished.

For our own part, we regret that the punishment of death has been retained even in a solitary instance—that of the forgery of wills—because a main argument for repealing the sanguinary punishment is its inefficacy; and to make the case of wills an exception to the general amelioration of the law, is to leave property, in that instance, less efficiently protected than in others.

As to the case of negotiable securities for money, not to say any thing of the two hundred petitions from various parts of the kingdom, the Bankers' Petition, signed by.one thousand of that practical and calculating race of men, is conclusive on the question of excessive severity producing extreme insecurity. The reasoning that shews it to be impolitic to make the forgery of negotiable securities for money a capital crime, applies with equal force to the forgery of wills.

* The death of THE KING, by which the Crown descended to His present Majesty, WILLIAM THE FOURTH.