REGIMENTAL EXCHANGES ACT-THE

WARRANT AND REGULATIONS.

MR. ASSHETON CROSS, in reply, I was not the practice-and he (Mr. Cross) said, that with great respect he must would not break through it upon this refuse to make any answer to this Ques-occasion-to state in what prison a contion. He should, without the least vict was confined. Jean Luie never reshrinking from responsibility, object to ported himself, so far as he could learn, the Question upon many grounds if it after he got his ticket-of-leave; indeed, was founded upon a true state of facts; he immediately went to Liége, in Belbut he objected to this Question entirely gium, and the police knew nothing about upon the ground that it rested upon the him. assumption that a state of facts was true for which there was not the slightest pretence or foundation. This man never had a remission of punishment; and if the hon. Member wished to have any documents he was prepared to lay upon the Table a certified copy of the record of conviction, which stated that the man was convicted and sentenced to six calendar months' imprisonment; also the warrant of commitment, which stated that he was to be imprisoned and kept to hard labour for six months, and the certificate of the Governor which stated that the prisoner had served for a period of six months.

DR. KENEALY said, he wished to state, in justification of his Question, that every newspaper at the time stated that Hopwood was sentenced to 12 months' imprisonment.

Afterwards

DR. KENEALY asked the right hon. Gentleman the date when the police authorities at Scotland Yard first communicated to the Treasury that Jean Luie was a ticket-of-leave convict; whether the said Jean Luie is still in this country, and, if confined, in what prison; and, if the said Jean Luie ever reported himself to the police after he got his ticket-of-leave; and if so, when and where?

QUESTION.

THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON asked the Secretary of State for War, Whether the Regulations under the Regimental Exchanges Act have been prepared; and, if so, whether he will lay them upon the Table of the House?

MR. GATHORNE HARDY, in reply, said, that the Warrant and Regulations had been prepared and had been approved by him. They awaited the sanetion of Her Majesty, after which they would be published in the General Orders, and would receive every possible publicity. If the noble Lord would move for them, there would be no objection to laying them upon the Table.

THE NEW FOREST.-QUESTION. MR. FAWCETT asked the Secretary to the Treasury, Whether he is aware that several hundred acres of waste land near Stoney Cross, in the manor of Minestead in the New Forest, previously lying open and forming part of the Forest, have recently been enclosed; and, whether the Crown has consented to this enclosure; and, if not, whether any and what means are proposed to be taken to restore to the open Forest the land thus enclosed?

MR. ASSHETON CROSS, in reply, said, he thought the time had almost come when Questions of this kind might MR. W. H. SMITH, in reply, said, be stopped, for the privilege of interro- that since the Question had been placed gating Ministers was liable, like every on the Paper he had been made aware other privilege, to be abused. It was of the fact that there had been an ennot a correct statement of fact to say closure within the last year or two to the that the police authorities at Scotland extent of 200 or 300 acres, belonging to Yard had ever communicated to the a private landowner in the neighbourTreasury that Jean Luie was a ticket-of-hood of Stoney Cross. The evidence leave convict. On Friday, November 28, 1873, after he had given his evidence for the defence, and after the evidence contradicting it had been given and the case for the prosecution had closed, two persons came into Court and identified Luie. He was now in a convict prison; but it

taken before the Committee which had reported this Session was to the effect that any assertion of the forestal rights of the Crown over the property of private landowners would be considered an unwarrantable attack upon private property. He was unable to state whether

LORD EUSTACE CECIL: Sir, trials are now in progress with this object, and it is to be hoped that the plan under trial will greatly diminish the corrosion consequent on the escape of gas through the

vent.

MEDICAL OFFICERS OF THE ARMY.

QUESTION.

invention for preventing all escape of any such invidious distinction as that gas through the vent, and consequent which was calculated to introduce discorrosion thereof? content amongst the people, and to sap the very foundations of justice itself. He wished to call the attention of the House to the atrocious nature of the offence of which this colonel had been found guilty. He was indicted upon three counts-for an assault with intent, for an indecent assault, and for a common assault. The jury arrived at what seemed to him a very lenient view of the colonel's conduct in acquitting him of the intent. Any person who had at all devoted any portion of his time to a consideration of the evidence given by Miss Dickinson must be satisfied that this colonel had undoubtedly in his mind at the time he assaulted her an attempt to violate her person. ["Oh!"] He did not care for shouts of "Oh" at all. He could assure hon. Gentlemen that he intended to maintain his ground in that House. Shouts of "Oh," and cries of "Order" were not likely to make him change his opinion. He repeated -and any person who had carefully studied the evidence could entertain no serious or reasonable doubt in his mind

In reply to Mr. MITCHELL HENRY, MR. GATHORNE HARDY said, that there would be 28 vacancies for medical officers in the Army to be filled up at the next examination. If, however, there should not be that number of candidates the number of appointments would be reduced in order that there might be a competitive examination.

SUPPLY.-REPORT.

CRIMINAL LAW-SENTENCE ON COLONEL BAKER.-OBSERVATIONS.

Resolutions [August 4] reported.

DR. KENEALY rose to call attention to the sentence imposed by Mr. Justice Brett on Colonel Baker, at the Croydon Assizes on the 2nd day of August 1875. He did so because he believed that there was a very growing feeling amongst a large class of persons in this country that the law was not administered with that justice which the country and the Constitution demanded. In point of fact, there was a feeling that there was one law for the rich and another for the poor, and that the old Constitutional maxim, that " everyone is equal in the eyes of the law," had been considerably modified. He believed every man in the country who rightly valued the preservation of our laws and liberties would agree with him that in the administration of justice there ought to be nothing like class distinction; but according to the sentence passed by the learned Judge on Colonel Baker it would seem that the rank of a defendant was to be the standard by which sentences were to be imposed-that there was to be one class of sentences for Dukes, Earls, or Marquesses, and an entirely different class of sentences for persons in a lower position of society. It was certainly new to him-and he had for some time studied the history of our country-that a Judge should lay down

that this gallant colonel intended to violate that lady, but was prevented by circumstances over which he had no control, and that although he had not come under the actual purview of the law with reference to the crime, he was as guilty as if he had effected his purpose. The description which the lady gave of the transaction was calculated to excite a feeling of the highest indignation, and that indignation would be increased by the sentence, which was really no punishment at all for one of the most scandalous and atrocious crimes ever committed. [The hon. Member proceeded to read, amid the marked impatience of the House, the evidence of Miss Dickinson.] He must appeal to the Speaker. was impossible for him to proceed in the execution of what he considered his duty while Gentlemen on all sides were interrupting him. Was he to be heard in his place or not? [Mr. SPEAKER: Order, order.] The hon. Member having read the evidence, proceeded; — The young lady described the man-whom she had never seen before - obtruding his attentions upon her, and behaving in a most shocking and indecent manner. He could make every allowance for young men—and particu

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"sudden outbreak of wickedness, and he should therefore not pass upon him a sentence which would carry with it all the personal and all the physical degradation which usually accompanied an ordinary sentence for this

offence."

larly young men in the Army; but he | his time as pleasantly as possible, redid not think it possible that any man ceiving everybody, and no doubt being at the period of life of this defendant, visited by persons of the same class as and filling the rank which he did, could those who stood beside him at the trial. commit himself to such atrocious con- It was necessary to draw the line someduct. The learned Judge had imposed where. An ordinary banker's clerk no penalty at all. He had directed that would have quite as much sense of dethis colonel should be imprisoned for gradation or sense of honour as this 12 months without hard labour, without colonel; and if he were convicted of any being subjected to the rigorous disci- breach of trust he would be sentenced pline of a gaol, and to pay a fine of to hard labour. He never knew a clergy£500, which in the case of a prisoner in man to be spared hard labour because his position was what the right hon. he happened to be a clergyman; and Gentleman at the head of the Govern- there were innumerable instances of merment once said in reference to our Na- chants and bankers whose feelings, he tional Debt, a mere fleabite," He thought, were entitled to as much re(Dr. Kenealy) was, however, greatly spect as the feelings of this colonel, being shocked and astonished at some of the sent to penal servitude and sentenced to remarks of the learned Judge in passing hard labour for offences infinitely less in sentence, as he found them reported in heinousness than that for which this man The Standard, which gave a very full and had been convicted. He read the remost accurate account of the trial. His mainder of the learned Judge's remarks Lordship said the crime must have arisen with feelings of the greatest indignation from a because he insinuated that this colonel, who had outraged every principle of honour and decency, was to be kept in the Army. He had laid down the law to the Secretary of State for War that he was not to interfere with the position of this colonel in the Army-that he was to be allowed to retain his rank and position, and the learned Judge went the length of saying that by some brilliant achievement-military achievement he presumed was meant-he hoped the defendant would regain his rank. He (Dr. Kenealy) hoped the right hon. Gentleman would not adopt this suggestion, and that the name of Colonel Baker would not be allowed to sully the pages of the Army List any longer. He now wished to call attention to the kind of punishment inflicted for certain offences. By the Bishop of Oxford's Act, if a man decoyed a young girl under the age of 16 from her home, although he had no improper motive for doing so, and no injury had been suffered by her, he was liable to imprisonment with hard labour, and he invariably got it. He remembered very well a case on his own circuit-the Oxford Circuit-in which a manufacturer was sentenced by Mr. Justice Quain to 18 months' physical degradation with hard labour for having decoyed a girl, between 15 and 16 years of age, from her parents and placed her in a convent. He was a man of the highest respectability, a married man, with a family, and no man stood higher

Those remarks called for the direct censure of this House. Every one knew that an ordinary sentence for an indecent assault committed on a defenceless young lady in a railway carriage would involve hard labour. But this man, because he happened to be a colonel in the Army and was supposed to be a brilliant ornament in certain circles of society, received a sentence that meant only that the rank and high and fashionable surroundings of colonels in the Army should be allowed to stand between them and justice. The Judge said "I fear it would subject you to a penalty far greater than it would be to a person differently situated," by which, of course, he meant a person in a lower rank of life. General Steele was reported in the newspapers to have committed the indecency of standing in the dock while this man was on his trialan act of indecency not only to the Judge, but to the Army, and one of which he hoped the Secretary of State for War would take notice. The colonel by the sentence would be allowed to amuse himself, to receive his friends, and entertain them, to live upon what food he pleased; he would be subjected to no restriction whatever, but he could pass