Mr. Gladstone and the Contagious Diseases Acts / by Joseph Edmondson.

  • Edmondson, Joseph.
Date:
[1874]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Mr. Gladstone and the Contagious Diseases Acts / by Joseph Edmondson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    pensated for by the fact that this law will operate in places where the Acts of 1866 and 1869 can never apply, and therefore many- more will be taken than is now the case under the existing- law. We must here also institute a comparison between the judicial features of the Acts and the Bill. The former, introduced into English law the startling- novelty of convicting- on evidence, which, instead of proving- the g-uilt of the accused, proves only that her ac- cuser had good cause to believe in her guilt. So that while the question to be decided in Court is the prostitution of-the accused, the question tried is the belief of the accuser, and as the existence of good cause for that belief is quite compatible with the inno- cence of the accused, the occasional conviction of innocent persons is •an inevitable result. The Bill of 1872 proposed to introduce into English law the equally- startling novelty of contingent and informal accusations. By contin- gent accusations we mean, that in the event of persons being accused of one offence, then they may be also accused of another which need have no relation to the first, and of which they would not be accused, in the absence of the first. The Bill provided that lengthened deten- tion (or lengthened imprisonment, as it should be called) might be in- ilicted where a woman was imprisoned in pursuance— (1) Of a conviction for any offence as a common prostitute ; or,'* (2) Of a conviction for any offence by a court of summary juris- ■diction, at the trial for which offence it is proved that she is a common prostitute. For the present we pass over the first clause, the objections to it lying in the immoral influence of the after-treatment of the women rather than in its judicial features, and we pass on to the second. Here, in the case of any woman apprehended for any offence, the Bill ■would give to the policeman power to add to the indictment the con- tingent and informal charge of being a common prostitute, a charge which, if she had not committed the primary offence, he would have no power to bring at all; the case of those committing any oflFence as common prostitutes being dealt with under the preceding- clause. Thus, one of two things would happen in the administration of this second clause—either there would be an enquiry into the woman's character while the trial for the primary offence was o-oing- on ; which enquiry would tend to bias the justices against her, and would, in spite of themselves, influence their judgment on the primary charge ; or on her conviction of the primary charge, the police would be asked what they knew of her character, and she would be con- tvicted of prostitution on their simple assertion to that effect. We believe no one with the slightest sense of justice will attempt* to up- Ihold the latter. The first method, however, has a certain outward similarity to the form of a fair trial. But this is only so in appear- ance. For, in the first place, as the charge of prostitution would be informal, the trial must of necessity be informal also. In the second place, the informal charge would preclude a formal acquittal in the ||vPnf nf Its not being proved, and would no^dmit of an appeal in the