ASSAULTS •0/4 WOMEN AND CHILDREN.
MI% the-Membenfor Rath, maintains that Mr. Fitzroy's. Act of 1853, by which. the Metropolitan' Police Magistrates are- authorized to extend the punishment for assaults upon women to six months'. impri- =mentor a fine of twenty pounds has failed to deter ruffian husbands from maltreating. their wives, and that the power to inflict corporal punishment ought to be superadded.. The answer of- the•Home Secre- tary was, that the act had been too recently in operation to determine the question of failure and that time must be allowed to ascertain whe- ther the punishment had not, proved efficacious. in, preventing, the same culprit from repeating the offence. In support of his view; Mr. Phinn called for statistics-- and.the return has just been issued. The details embrace two periods. The number of. charges preferred' against male persons at each of the Metropolitan Pollee districts. for assaults upon females,.froxitlie.lst.Jime 1850-to the 1st. June 1853; and the number preferred, for the year during which the new act has been in fOrce from the 14th June•1853- to the 14th June 1854. Particulars are given as to the results of the charges, the, punishments inflicted, the re- lationship of the parties; and the number of complaints, made against the same persons.
The return is not well devised for elucidating. the main point, namely, the effect of the new law upon_ the case of husband and wife. A compari- son is offered between the last three•years of the old law and the first year of the more stringent new law but to compare three years with one year is an unsatisfactory process;, and, besides, the returns from the several Police. Courts are,. not. made oat. on the eaateplan. The return might to be amended, limiting the details to the last year of the oldlaw. and the first year.of thesew, with the facts set forthin a uniform manner.
Judging front the return wit stands, and taking the- average of the three years,,there appears to be no increase in the offence under the new law, in. so far afethe.numberof charges are concerned. On the contrary, tilde has been a:diminution in,the Lambeth,, the Marlborough, and. the S.outhwark districts. The Thames district. shows an increase. The; model district of7Matylebone has not thought. Wright. to, contribute. it& qpnta.of infonnation. The law, moreover, has not been.put forthin its. full vigour exceptin a few instaiices.4 and it is not clear in every:case. whether the persons. so punished were husbands or not- Asaultling.thot they were husbands, Bow Street, out of seventeen. convicted for assault- rug their wives,, sent one to prison for six month;.4 at Clerkenwell,, four persons are mentioned ast having, been sent to prison for six. months ;. greenwinh, and Wootwieh give Haven.- Haunnersmith shows eighteen comiationsi awl' two, °readout, sent, tyhoe, to. ea, for six, months,, an three. others committed for the like period in default of sureties. At Southwark, the extreme term of imprisonment was, inflicted in ten eases out of thirty-one ; at the Thames Court, forty-six bushand&are set down, and thirteen imprisonments for six months. At Wandsworth, only two cases of assaults upon wives are recorded, and three months! imprison- ment was the punishment. The return; however, are an unsatisfactory as to prevent any further approximation to the truth. One obviousteffect of the new law has been to prevent peculiarly aggravated' cases from being sent to the sessions. Upon the whole it may be said, that& the offence has not diminished it has not increased; that the law hae•not been fully put forth ; and that there is nothing to evince a disposition.on the part-of offenders who have been subjected to severe punishment to indulge in their ruffianism and reappear before the Magistrate.
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