The Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885 (48 & 49 Vict. c.69), or "An Act to make further provision for the Protection of Women and Girls, the suppression of brothels, and other purposes", was the latest in a 25-year series of legislation in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland beginning with the Offences against the Person Act 1861 that raised the age of consent and delineated the penalties for sexual offences against women and minors. It also strengthened existing legislation against prostitution and recriminalised male homosexuality. This act was also notable for the circumstances of its passage in Parliament.
Read more about Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885: Background, The Bill Languishes, Armstrong Case, The Debate Resumes, Passage and Effects, Repeals
Famous quotes containing the words criminal, law, amendment and/or act:
“Think of admitting the details of a single case of the criminal court into our thoughts, to stalk profanely through their very sanctum sanctorum for an hour, ay, for many hours! to make a very barroom of the mind’s inmost apartment, as if for so long the dust of the street had occupied us,—the very street itself, with all its travel, its bustle, and filth, had passed through our thoughts’ shrine! Would it not be an intellectual and moral suicide?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The law is a sort of hocus-pocus science, that smiles in yer face while it picks yer pocket: and the glorious uncertainty of it is of more use to the professors than the justice of it.”
—Charles Macklin (1690–1797)
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—Stephanie Martson (20th century)
“The violence and obscenity are left unadulterated, as manifestation of the mystery and pain which ever accompanies the act of creation.”
—Anaïs Nin (1903–1977)