was
referred to a committee for the examination of the discipline and police
of the different prisons throughout the country. The appointment of this
committee was moved by Lord Castlereagh; but it was thought by some that
a distinct committee should be appointed, for the purpose of taking the
whole subject into consideration. A motion to this effect was made by
Sir James Mackintosh on the 2nd of March; and though Lord Castlereagh
opposed it, as unnecessary, it was carried by one hundred and
forty-seven against one hundred and twenty-eight. In his speech on this
occasion, Sir James Mackintosh, after setting forth a great variety of
facts and observations, illustrating the system of subterfuge which
the extreme severity of the law in many cases had produced among
prosecutors, witnesses, and jurors, with the consequent impunity and
increase of crime, proceeded to explain his views of melioration,
observing that it was neither his wish nor intention to form a new
criminal code. He did not, he said, even propose to abolish capital
punishment; but, on the contrary, he regarded it as a part of that
right with which societies are endowed. He held it to be, like all
other punishments, an evil when unnecessary; but capable, like them, of
producing, when sparingly and judiciously inflicted, a preponderance of
good. He aimed not at the establishment of any universal principle;
his object was, that the execution of the law should constitute the
majority, and its remission the minority of cases. Subsequently Sir
James divided the cases connected with capital punishment into three
classes: those in which it was always, those in which it was frequently,
and those in which it was never put in force. The first and second of
these cases he proposed to leave untouched; the third, which comprised
more than one hundred and fifty crimes, he contended should be expunged
from the statute-book, as a monument of barbarous times, disgraceful to
the character of a free and enlightened nation.

MEASURES FOR RESUMPTION OF CASH-PAYMENTS.

On the 2nd of February Mr. Tierney moved for a committee to inquire into
the effects of the Bank restriction act. This was met by an amendment
from the chancellor of the exchequer, directing an investigation of the
state of the Bank of England, with reference to the expediency of its
resumption of cash-payments at the appointed period; such information to
be reported by the committee as might be disclosed wit