360 



ANNUM, REGISTER, 1817. 



person who advances the money 

 may have a claim to tlie discount ; 

 yet they cannot but think the 

 demand is exorbitant, and the 

 whole practice liable to great 

 abuse. With respect to the dis- 

 tribution itself, no fixed rule seems 

 to exist J and from evidence which 

 has been submitted to your com- 

 mittee, they have reason to be- 

 lieve, that while in some cases a 

 much larger sum than the exer- 

 tions of the claimants can warrant 

 is proportioned to them, in others, 

 great partiality is shown, and ser- 

 vices, however imi)ortant, are suf- 

 feied to go unrewarded 



Theie is another species of re- 

 ward which your committee would 

 equally wish to do away with, 

 namely, that which is technically 

 called a Tyburn Ticket, which is 

 an exemption from the service of 

 parish offices in the parish where 

 the felony was committed, and 

 which by the 10th and Uth of 

 William III. chap. 23, is to be 

 given to the appreiiender and 

 taker of the felon on his or her 

 conviction. This mode of remu- 

 neration has all the bad conse- 

 quences of the parliamentary re- 

 wards by money, as the ticket is 

 generally sold, varying in its price 

 from 12 or 14 to 30 or 401. ac- 

 cording to the parish in which the 

 exemption is to arise ; and indeed 

 it may be considered in some re- 

 spects as worse, it having all the 

 effect of a money reward without 

 its name. Your committee think 

 it fit that tlie officers of the police 

 should have a sufficient salary, 

 ample enough to keep them above 

 the temptation of corrui.tion ; and 

 if the rewards be abolished, some 

 arrangement to that effect should 

 take place. That portion of the 



reward which it is now the custom 

 to pay for the expenses of the trial 

 to the prosecutor might be con- 

 tinued, and a reasonable allowance 

 made for loss of time to the wit- 

 nesses. But your committee con- 

 sider the payments of reward for 

 the discovery and apprehension of 

 criminals to be perfectly unneces- 

 sary ; and they think the evidence 

 of Mr. Shelton, the clerk of the 

 Arraigns, decisive upon tliis ques- 

 tion, who, from long practice in 

 courts of law, is so fully capable 

 of estimating correctly the diffi- 

 culties attending on criminal pro- 

 secution : he says, speaking of 

 highway robberies, " I should 

 conceive there could be no more 

 difficulty in discovering and ap- 

 prehending a person charged with 

 highway robbery, wheie a rtvvard 

 is given, than there would be in 

 the discovery and apprehension of 

 offenders guilty of crime, for 

 which there is no reward." 



Your committee remark, that 

 there is no evidence to prove that 

 any difficulties are found in tlie 

 prosecution of larcenies, or that 

 there is any unwillingness in the 

 injured to seek legal redress. The 

 only impediments that are to be 

 met with upon the general sub- 

 ject of legal piosecutions are of 

 two kinds — 1st, The expenses of 

 the prosecution; 2(1, 'J he seveiity 

 of the laws, which often deter 

 men from pursuing the offender 

 to conviction ; so that if the par- 

 ties prosecuting were assisted in 

 their expenses l^y an allowance, 

 and the witnesses rem\nierated for 

 loss of time, the jHiblic justice of 

 the country would be no more in- 

 terrupted than under the present 

 practice. 



As an illustration of this system 



of 



