or any future Parliament for the said I was most likely to be cautious in making 'Borough.' assertions on the subject? Mr. Hodgson did not think the noble Lord's instruction was exactly like that which he had moved, and he could not support it. He could not consent to a proposal which would augment the punishment of the innocent. Mr. John O'Connell expressed his conviction that to press the clause would endanger the Bill. Mr. Wason would ask the noble Lord either to point out that page of the Report which bore out his statements, or he would tell him, that his insinuation was what no honourable man would have given utter ance to. The Speaker: I am quite sure, that the hon. Member did not mean to express what his language would imply, and he Mr. Benett suggested, that if the noble must explain to the House what he meant Lord wished to punish John Atkinson, it by the employment of those phrases. would be competent for him to bring in a Mr. Wason: I throw myself on the Bill for that purpose. He hoped, how-House. The noble Lord insinuated, that ever, that if the noble Lord did take this I was not as worthy of belief as the noble step, he would not stop at Mr. John At- Lord. That insinuation, Sir, in deference kinson, but go higher, and not stop till to you as Chairman, though I may differ he found out where the money came from. with you individually, in this House I treat This measure would take the poor free-lightly, but out of this House the noble men out of the way of temptation. Lord knows how I would treat it. Mr. Ewart Gladstone agreed with the The Speaker: The hon. Member speaks noble Lord, that there should not be one Parliamentarily, when he says, that the law for the rich and another for the poor, deference he pays is not to me but to the and yet some hard cases would occur un- Chair. The interference I venture on on der the instruction moved by the noble this occasion is a part of my duty as speakLord. There was one fact stated, amid ing in the name of the House. I now call the corruption of the Liverpool election, on the hon. Member to explain language in the conduct of Mr. Yates, which, in a which is certainly most unparliamentary, great measure, redeemed the open bribery, and to say what he meant by the ambiThat gentleman thought it his duty, in the guous sort of threat he threw out, which face of the people and the candidates, to the hon. Member knows is never suffered state that, where such open and unblush-in this House to pass without notice. ing corruption was practised, he should not vote on either side. It would be hard on him, and others similarly circumstanced, to be excluded from the franchise. The instruction of the noble Lord would not deal equally with the poor and with the rich. It dealt more severely with the latter, as it precluded the right of franchise which they might otherwise hereafter acquire an acquisition which, it was well. known, the poor man could not contemplate; and thus the penal portion of the instruction would, in one way, be incapable of affecting him, Mr. Wason.-Sir, I did not say that I objected to you personally, but not to the Chair. I never made that statement, and I am sure, Sir, that you must have attributed such a statement to me unwillingly. The Speaker. The hon. Member must go further. He must explain to the House what he did say, and what he meant by the ambiguous threat he threw out. Mr. Wason. That was not the point which I[" Order, order," "Chair, chair."] The hon. member for Northampton may, in that cheer, call "Chair, chair," if he pleases. What am I to do? Lord Sandon was understood to say, I was about to repeat the words I used that no proof of bribery against 850 of the before, and the hon. Member calls out, freemen had been substantiated, and yet" Chair, chair." The words I used were the House cheered at the prospect of punishing these innocent men. Mr. Wason maintained, that there was no evidence before the House to show these 850 persons had not been bribed, Lord Sandon said, that as this was a question of fact, he would leave it to the House to decide, from experience, which of the two, the hon. Member or himself, these-that if the noble Lord meant to insinuate that my statement were not as worthy of belief as his own, no honourable man would have been guilty of such an insinuation; and, I think, that in saying this, I use as mild an expression as can be employed to throw back the insinuation. Mr. Bulwer: The noble Lord said that the interpretation should not be put upon his words which the hon. member, for Ipswich put on them; he hoped that would be satisfactory. Mr. Wason: If the noble Lord said he did not mean to insult him, then he would tender an apology. I called on the hon. Member to explain, | his word as a gentleman that he intended and I am sure he will respond to the call. no offensive insinuation. He knows what that call means, and if he does not answer it, I must then name him to the House, and he knows what the consequences of my naming will be. The hon. Member says he throws himself on the House. It is from no personal feeling that I interfere. The hon. Member undertakes to put an interpretation on the language of another in stating himself convinced that an insinuation against his honour was intended. That has been contradicted. ["No, no," and cries of "Order," while Mr. Wason made a movement as if intending to rise.] I am glad to see the hon. Member prepared to rise, which he was not before. I heard the noble Lord express the negative. The hon. Member, however, has repeated the same injurious terms which he used before, and concluded by expressing an ambiguous threat. On both these points I call on him to say what he did mean. Mr. Wason. I think I now understand the position in which I am placed, which I did not before, for I did not hear the denial of the noble Lord. If the noble Lord will rise in his place and say, as a gentleman, in the face of this House, that he did not mean to convey any such insinuation as I had inferred from his language, I shall readily apologize for anything I have said. Lord Sandon said, as he was appealed to, he would repeat what he had said. He said that he would leave it to the House, from experience, to judge which was, he or the hon. Member, the more likely to be cautious in his assertions. He was alluding to a former assertion of the hon. Member respecting the Mayor and Town Clerk of Liverpool, and when he (Lord Sandon) denied the correctness of those remarks, and the hon. Member maintained them, he (Lord Sandon) said, that the assertions were not so cautious as to induce the House to believe the hon. Member before him (Lord Sandon). He meant to cast no imputation on the hon. Member's honour. Mr. Wason said, so careful was he not to insinuate anything against the Mayor and Corporation of Liverpool on the occasion referred to, that he actually read his statements from the printed evidence, and had tired the House with the documents. But the noble Lord had not yet given the explanation which he ought. Let him give Lord George Bentinck's Motion was negatived, and the House went into Committee. The clauses of the Bill were read and agreed to, and the House resumed. - LEAMINGTON PETITION ALLEGED BREACH OF PRIVILEGE.] Mr. Tancred in moving "that Counsel or Agents be admitted to be heard before the Committee on the Leamington petition in support of the petition presented by certain inhabitants of Leamington Spa, on the 11th instant," wished briefly to state the circumstances out of which the motion arose. A petition had been presented some time ago from a numerous body of persons, representing themselves as inhabitant rate-payers of Leamington Spa, in favour of having the elective franchise of Warwick extended to that town. Many of the signatures to that petition had been impugned as forgeries. Some of the parties who had signed that petition had presented another yesterday, alleging that the former was genuine, and offering to prove that fact. What he had now to move was, that these parties be heard by their counsel or agents before that Committee in support of their petition, The Speaker, in putting the Motion, put it in the usual form-" that the parties be heard by their counsel or agents so far as their interests were concerned." Mr. Tancred said, that the object of the petitioners was to have an opportunity of proving that the whole of the signatures to the first petition were genuine. The Speaker expressed a doubt as to how far the petitioners could, according to the forms of the House, be allowed to appear by counsel or agents before the Committee in any other character than that of merely advocating their own interests. Mr. Tancred repeated his former remark, adding that justice to the parties who signed the former, as well as the present petition, would not be done, unless they were allowed to prove that the allegations against them were unfounded. The Speaker remarked, that the whole connected with the immediate interests of case was one of the most extraordinary the parties for whom they appeared, which had come before Parliament within he agreed that that would be only to his recollection. When the former pe- increase the difficulty; but he felt that if tition was presented, it was stated by the the Committee were to proceed with the hon. and learned member for Dover (Mr. inquiry, it would be impossible that they Halcombe) that the petition was a fraud could do so unless they were assisted by upon the House, that it contained the agents whose local knowledge made them names of parties alleged to be residents in familiar with facts and circumstances as Leamington, who had no existence there, to the alleged signatures, with which the and that the names of others who were re- members of the Committee could not be sident had been put to it without their supposed to be acquainted. He fully adknowledge or consent. A Committee had mitted that the House was placed in a subsequently been appointed to inquire difficulty by the appointment of the Comrespecting that petition; but it seemed to mittee, which if it were to go fully into the him that great difficulty would be to be allegations made, must consume a great encountered in going into the case of deal of time, and involve a very considerevery party who signed the petition. able expense. It would, however, be for the House to consider whether the present was a course in which they ought to proceed. Mr. Tancred said, that the petitioners whose petition had been presented on the 11th offered, if allowed, to prove that the whole of the signatures to the former petition were genuine. The Speaker said, that that would no doubt relieve the House from some part of the difficulty, but not from the whole. Every turn which the case took presented a new and singular feature. Supposing that these petitioners could give the evidence they stated, still it was doubtful whether they could be allowed to be heard before the Committee, merely as amici curiæ, and beyond their own interests. The Speaker would remind the House of the circumstances under which the Committee had been appointed. When the hon. member for Dover first mentioned the subject as a breach of privilege, he applied to him (the Speaker) to know whether it were not a case which ought to take precedence of all other business. He informed the hon. Member that it was one of those cases into which the House would inquire if brought before it; but the question was put, whether or not there had been any petition presented com and the answer of the hon. member for Dover was in the affirmative. It was then, of course, the impression of the House that such a petition was before it, but on further inquiry it turned out that no such petition had been presented. This fact of course created a great difficulty as regarded the course which should be taken in the proposed inquiry. As to the appointment of counsel, the right hon. Gentleman repeated the difficulty which would occur in admitting them to act for parties as amici curiæ. Mr. Abercromby said, that his attention had been called to this subject in an un-plaining of this alleged breach of privilege, expected manner. He had found by the votes that his name, in his absence, had been placed on the Committee to inquire respecting the first petition from Leamington, in which it was alleged that a fraud had been practised on the House. He attended the Committee, and inquired for the parties who made the charge, and who were to adduce the evidence in its support. He was answered by the Chairman of the Committee (Mr. Halcombe) that he it was who made the charge, and he would call evidence to prove it. He had understood, that the charge had rested on something to be brought forward by some parties who had petitioned to be allowed to prove the alleged fraud; but he found that that was not the case, and that the hon. member for Dover was the only party appearing to conduct the prosecution of the affair. Now, as to the Motion for the appointment of counsel to be heard on the part of the petitioners, and who would probably claim to be heard on matters not Mr. Abercromby remarked, that another difficulty in the case arose from the fact that the claim of the petitioners now before the House did not rest on any petition which impugned their former petition, but on the speech of a Member of that House in his place. How the House could proceed in a matter which was in effect a claim to be heard in reply to a speech within its own walls he would not decide; but it certainly placed the Com mittee in a new situation, and one which added in no slight degree to the embarrassment as to the mode of conducting its inquiries. The Speaker here suggested, that probably the better course would be, to adjourn the debate on this Motion until the meeting of this House the next day, when they might have an opportunity of reconsidering the original proposition. Mr. Spring Rice thought the suggestion was one which the House ought to adopt, for if it should appear that the groundwork of the appointment of the Committee had failed, they might then consider the propriety of rescinding the original Motion. Mr. Aglionby asked whether the House could retrace its steps in the appointment of the Committee, if it should be found that that appointment had taken place under a misconception as to the presentation of a petition, which petition, in fact, had no existence? COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS.] The Earl of Durham wished to call the attention of the House to a Petition of which he had given notice, and which he conceived to be well deserving of their Lordships' serious consideration. It was a Petition from the Physicians practising in London under the title of Licentiates. As he should move, that the Petition be read at length, he should only state in general that it complained of the bye laws of the College of Physicians, which excluded Licentiates from their share in the government of the College, in the emoluments of it, and in the privileges attached to it, and prayed for a general inquiry into, and remedy of, the existing bad state of the law relating to the medical profession. He had also a Petition from the practising Surgeons and Apothecaries of the Metropolis on a similar subject, which he should present on a future occasion. The Petition he now held in his hand was signed by seventy-six Licentiate Physicians, being more than one-half of those who practised in London. In the College-list of 1832, there were 126 Fellows of the College and 272 Licentiates. Of those, sixty-five Fellows and 138 Licentiates were in London. These together made up a number of 203, and out of that number 180 only practised in London and within seven miles round it, in which the population amounted to 1,500,000 persons. With a view of forming some opinion on the subject, it would be curious to know the proportion of Physicians in Berlin and Paris, as compared to the population of those cities, and then to see whether the opinion was borne out, that the effect of the bye laws of the College of Physicians was to prevent London from enjoying a sufficient supply of medical men of the first rank The Speaker hoped that hon. Members would not retire under the notion, that he had stated that this Committee had been appointed under the misrepresentation that a petition on the subject had been presented; for undoubtedly the House had a right to appoint the Committee even though no petition complaining of a breach of privilege had been presented. He had felt it his duty to put the House in possession of the fact, that when the hon. Member complained in his place of a breach of privilege, the question was asked whether that complaint rested on any petition presented to the House stating the fact, and the answer of the hon. member for Dover, was in the affirmative. It appeared, however, on inquiry, that in that answer the hon. member for Dover was mistaken. The further debate on the subject was and class. The propositions were these: adjourned till the next day. 122 HOUSE OF LORDS, MINUTES.] Bills. Read a first time:-Borough of Warwick. caster, to have the Accounts of Trustees of Turnpike Roads made Public.-By Viscount MELBOURNE, and another NOBLE LORD, from two Places,-against the present System of Church Patronage (Scotland).-By Lord LYTTLETON, from Sedgeley, against the Sale of Beer Act. -By the Bishops of LONDON and ROCHESTER, and Lord Congregations,-praying for Relief. -In Berlin, where there was a population of 249,000, there were 228 Physicians. In Paris, where the population amounted to 935,000, there were 925 Physicians; while, in London, where the population was 1,500,000, there were only 180 practising Physicians. Again, in Berlin there Paris there were 159; and in London were 174 surgeons and apothecaries; in 2,000. It was not now a question whether there were too many surgeons and apothecaries, but whether the demand of the people for medical aid of the first order was fully complied with, and whether the bye laws of the College of Phys what he conceived to be unjust and improper privileges. He thought there ought to be a less restricted right of admission to all the privileges of the College, and a power of exercising a superintendence over its management, and that there should be added to the list of its privileged members a sufficient supply of the best and purest names of the profession. He moved that the Petition be brought up and read. The Petition having been read, Viscount Melbourne, without giving any opinion on this subject, owed it to the medical body at large to say, that he was satisfied that a general inquiry into the laws of the medical profession was highly expedient, and that considerable advantages might be expected from it. He did not, however, see that there was any actual necessity for their Lordships to enter into such an inquiry, since a Committee had been appointed in the House of Commons to take the whole matter into consideration. If, however, his noble friend was desirous of embarking in an inquiry of the same kind, and would himself undertake the task of conducting it, he should offer a Motion for appointing a Committee, no opposition. sicians did not compel the people to have recourse to an inferior grade of practitioners. There were throughout the rest of the country 150 Physicians who were members of the College; and twenty-five Licentiates for the whole of England and Wales. The complaints against the laws now regulating the medical profession were, that no person could practise in London unless he had passed an examination at the College, and that no person could pass an examination there unless he had graduated at Oxford or Cambridge, where the medical schools were of an inferior kind; that the College did not possess the power of protecting those whom it licensed, for that its Statutes were not penal; that any person whatever might practise as a surgeon; that with respect to that branch of the profession, there was required an Act similar to that passed in 1815, with regard to apothecaries, in which branch great improvements had taken place since the passing of the Act in question. The petition went on to state, that the Charter was granted in the tenth year of the reign of Henry 8th.; that the restrictions imposed on that Charter were proper enough at the time it was granted, but that the bye laws which had since been made were of such a nature, that the original intention and object of the Charter were evaded. The result of these bye laws he believed to be, that the bulk of the medical men of the highest skill and attainments had been excluded from those advantages and privileges, the enjoyment of which was unjustly confined to a very small number. In consequence of this exclusion, dissensions had arisen in the medical profession, and the people were deprived of enjoying all the benefit that the advanced state of medical science ought to be able to confer Lord Ellenborough had no objection upon them. In the 300 years during whatever to the appointment of a Comwhich the Charter had been in existence, mittee, but, from the statement made by the College of Physicians had only pub- the noble Lord opposite, it appeared to lished eighteen volumes of their trans-him that this grievance was rather of an actions, while on the Continent the Medical and Chirurgical bodies answering to our College of Physicians, had, during the last thirty years, published eighty volumes of transactions. It was only on public grounds that he had brought this subject under the consideration of their Lordships, for in private he knew and esteemed some of the members of the College of Physicians, in whose hands these bye laws placed the enjoyment of The Earl of Durham did not know whether the medical body would or would not be satisfied with the inquiry established by the House of Commons. When they came to him to ask him to present this petition, he stated the fact of the appointment of a Committee in the House of Commons, but they did not on that account withdraw their petition to the House of Lords, but desired that their case should be brought under the consideration of their Lordships' House. individual, than of a public nature; but he must, in justice to the medical profession of this metropolis, say, that whether chiefly composed of men of the higher or the inferior classes of the profession, they appeared to be more successful in their treatment of diseases than the medical professors of the cities with which they had been compared, for the average mortality in London was much smaller than in either Berlin or Paris, The aver |