Lord Russell of Killowen on Thursday brought in his Bill
for assimilating the giving or taking of illicit commissions to other kinds of fraud. It is a very stringent Bill, enabling a Judge to give a witness who speaks the truth a guarantee against being prosecuted for evidence which incriminates him- self. It goe , too, rather far. We have had no opportunity of reading the Bill, but we imagine from the masterly, descrip- tion given of it by the Lord Chief Justice—a really extraordinary mass of condensed information, a book in fact, in pemmican—that it will prohibit "tips," even when their object is not injurious to any one. If that is the case, it goes too far for public feeling, and will never pass the Commons. It is very ungenerous to obtain a reserved com- partment by a fee to the guard, but to punish such a trick with imprisonment is absurd. The Commons will never do it. Lord Halsbury's remedy is to require the assent of the Attorney-General, but probably some easier precaution will be found.
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