The Sun.
London, England, 1854-03-23 00:00:00

ASSIZE INTELLIGENCE.

JC. .W.SG

HOME CrillerlT—MemsTon, MARCH 22.
(Before Baron Alderson, and a Special Jury.)
ICARTNOLL V. DURHAM.

This was an action for libel. The defendant pleaded
not guilty and a justification as to a portion of the libel.
Mr. M. Chambers, Q.C., Mr. Devi% Mr. Lush, and
Mr. H. A. Simon appeared for the plaintiff ; Sir F.
Thesiger, who came down upon a special retainer) Mr.
Bramwell, Q.C., Mr. Willes, and Mr, Jackson were for
the defendant.
This cause was tried on Tuesday, And it occupied the
whole of the day, and was not brought to a close Until
late in the evening.
Mr. Chambers in opening the case described it ag one
of considerable importance) inasmuch as it involved the
question whether the press was to be protected hi fair
criticism upon public matters for the interest of the
public, or whether, because the observations that
\-:• ere made upon any particular subject might give
o a
'fence to certain persons, the person making those ob-
. Ans in the discharge of his duty was to be grossly
servitta _ impunity. The learned counsel then .pro-
slandered will _4' the plaintiff, Mr. John Ho,.o,.bper Htiaort:
of a newspaper published at
ceedesi to state tha..
noll, was the proprietor . am and he had also
Greenwich, called the Kentish, Mel—
for a good many years conducted a weekly per.
called the Post Magazine, which devoted its attention
exclusively to matters conducted with insurance com-
panies. The defendant, Mr. Durham, was the chairman
of the board of directors of a company called the Unity
Fire Assurance Association, and it was in that capacity
that he was charged with having published the libel of
which the plaintiff complained. As he had stated, the
plaintiff took a very great interest in the subject of in-
surance, and he devoted his attention to examining the
accounts of the companies that offered themselves to the
notice of the public, and there was very little doubt that
the information he thus rendered was of great import-
aaice, and tended materially to prevent persons from
being defrauded by connecting themselves with offices
based upon unsound principles. After the passing of
an act of Parliament called the Joint-stock Com-
panies Registration Act of 1846, which was an act
that gave great facilities to the formation of com-
panies of this descr:ption, the plaintiff was struck with
the enormous increase in the number of insurance coin
,anies, the number previous to that period having been
afv-seven, whereas after the passing of the act they in-
creased to 396, and he felt it to be his duty in the dis-
charge of the task he had undertaken to look closely at
the mode eu management of every new company that
5,7 as started, e.,114, to caution the public if he believed their
calcizlations were elioneous, or that the way in which
their business was c0nd444..;+ was such as to leave no
possibility of success. August, 1852, the company
in question, winch was called the Unity Fire Assurance
Association, was provisionally registered in accordance
se
bcaarpeistaolf w2al.s
et
ao
ebb e,
00T0h
onewithmtihl
lei
np,rotvoi sbioe ursai4oefdthbye aocto,
and the deposit to be paid upon each share was to be 55.,
and the defendant was stated in the prospectus to be the
chairman, Major Stones the vice-chairman, and a Mr. T.
H. Bayliss was the secretary and manager, The com-
pany made great efforts to obtain popularity; a meeting
was held at Manchester, where there was also a general
entertainment at the laying of the first stone of the
splendid building intended to be the offices of the com-
pany ; and in August, 1853, there appeared in all the
London morning papers what, he said, might well
be termed a monster advertisement, inasmuch as it
filled eighteen columns of the papers, and consisted of the
names and addresses of 5,000 persons who were share-
holders in the Unity Association. The plaintiff, ob-
serving ad those proceedings, found it right to look into
the accounts of the company, and the result was that the
Pest Magazine being insufficient for the purpose, he on the
Ist of October brought out a new publication called the
Assurance Monitor, in which he gave to the public the
result of his inquiries and the information he had ob-
tained. Mr. Chambers read extracts from the publica-
tion mentioned. They referred specially to the defen-
dants' company, and represented that, although it was
put forth to the public that 125,000/. of capital was paid
up, he has ageertained by a memorandum of the regis-
tration deed that this was not the case, and that a con-
siderable number of the subscriptions were unpaid, and
then went on to say that, supposing this amount really
had been paid up, the enormous expenditure of the com-
pany in connexion with their building, advertising, com-
mission to agents, &c., would prevent them from in-
vesting more than 80,0001. or 90,0001., the interest of
which would be more than swallowed up by the current
expenses, and that the shareholders could only expect a
dividend from the hazards of the office, and that they
must amount to four millions of pounds, and there must
not be a single loss, before a dividend of five per cent.
could be paid. The article also went on to say that upon
every five shillings paid a shilling was given to the agent
for commission, and likewise called attention to the fact
that Mr. T. H. Bayliss, the secretary, acted in the same
capacity to another joint-stock company of the same de-
scription, and that several of the directors of the Unity
were acting in the same capacity to other companies of
the like kind, which must of necessity be opponents of
the Unity. The result arrived at appeared to be that
the shareholders of that company could not hope to be
successful in their undertaking, for the reasons stated.
The learned counsel proceeded to say that he should
contend that the plaintiff, acting honestly in the discharge
of his duty, had a perfect right to publish this article, in
order that, if his arguments were well founded, the pub-
lic might be guarded against the mischief and ruin that
too frequently resulted from unsound establishments of
this character, and that the defendant, acting on behalf of
the company, in attacking him as he afterwards did, had
committed a gross injustice, and had rendered himself
amenable to the present action. He had stated that the
first number of the Assurance Monitor appeared on the
Ist October, and very shortly afterwards a pamphlet was
publish ed, entitled "An Address to the Shareholders of
the Unity Fire Association, in reply to the unwarrant-
able attacks made upon it be the Assurance Monitor,"
and this pampl-let contained the libel of which the plain-
tiff now complain ad. The learned counsel here read
portions of the parnpNet in question, in which the plain-
tiff was classed as a joL'rnalist with the writers in the
Satirist, Age, Paul Pry, azid other disreputable prints,
and it described him as an hir:
aling writer, and said that,
like those who had formerly written in the publications
referred to, he lived by extortion ,:knd levying "black
mail" from his victims. The learneL:l counsel having
commented at some length upon the aggr:.kvated charac-
ter of the charges made against the plainiN, said he
trusted that when he had laid the whole of the case
before the jury they would feel that it was one which
called for exemplary damages.
Mr. Tarrant, the attorney for the plaintiff, proved
that he applied for a copy of the pamphlet headed „An
Address to the Shareholders, &c.," at the offices of the
company, and one was given to him by a clerk.
Mr. Taylor, the attorney for the defendant, was called
in order to show that he was the chairman of the com-
pany, and that the pamphlet had been issued with his
knowledge.
In answer to questions by Sir F. Thesiger, the witness
said that the company was provisionally registered in
May, 1852, and was completely registered in September.
The directors were —Major Stones, Mr. Garland, Mr.
Jackson (the barrister), Sir W. 0. Pell, Mr. Taylor,
(witness's brother), Mr. T. Vaughan, Sir W. C. Dalzell,
and Dr. Lloyd, oue of the lecturers at Guy's Hospital.
Their qualification was 2,000 shares, but they each held
5,000. At the time the plaintiff published the Monitor
lie believed the whole of the 125,0001. had been paid up.
On the 28th of November, 1853, there was a meetinr, of
the shareholders at Willis's rooms, which was numerously
tcu
ho pepo i
alterationnce
os
no of
e a
ntethehyoa,mt Awpwhsas uaincsyhr
.mai
at
wascTde eb.ir
eiainios
wnte
hiditetonfi
on
is
from
oo
unot
ntbnateei
attended, and some person was there who distributed
nontfi
on
the
wleut
oldiceemadpiaiittti
otia.
oal
ancoknsf
which had also been made the subject of complaint,
in the plaintiff's publication, and he said that every-
thing,
that was done in this respect was under the
direction and advice of the registrar of joint-stock
companies.

Mr. J. H. Hartnoll, the plaintiff, was then examined.
He saidthat he was formerly teacher of mathematics and
nautical science at the Royal Naval School at Greenwich,
but had retired upon a pension. He had been for twenty
years proprietor of the Kentish, Mercury newspaper, and
fourteen years ago he projected the Penny Post Maga-
zine. This publication was devoted entirely to insurance
matters, and circulated principally among insurance
offices. After the passing of the Joint Stock Companies
Registration Act a great many new fire and life in-
surance offices were brought out, and he canvassed their

merits in his journal. He remembered the establish-
ment of the Unity in 1852, and afterwards seeing the
advertisement of the names of the shareholders. He felt
it right to make inquiries, and in consequence of the in-
formation he obtained, he subsequently published an ar-
ticle referring to the society in a publication which he
brought out for the first time on the Ist of October. He
swore most positively that he was not employed by any
insurance company to write the article, and that he did
so in consequence of his conviction that the statements
in it were true, and that they put the public in posses-
sion of the knowledge of the real condition of the com-
pany. He also stated most positively that he had never
received a single farthing from any person whatever for
writing the article. He sent four thousand copies of the
publication, at his own expense, to the persons whose
names appeared in the advertisement as shareholders.

Upon being cross-examined by Sir F. Thesiger, Mr.
Hartnoll said, that besides his connection with the pub-
lication in question, he had kept a school at Brixton,
but since the publication of the libel upon him he bad
found it necessary to modify the establishment. He
was formerly proprietor of a newspaper, called the
Greenwich. Gazette, which was an unprofitable concern,
and it merged into the Mercury. He at the same time
conducted another paper, called the West Kent Guardian.
One of the county magistrates complained upon one occa-
sion of an article that appeared in his paper, and he made
an apology. A criminal information was also filed
against him by Lord Dartmouth, and he apologised.
Lord Dartmouth paid his own costs and those of his
(witness's) publisher, but witness paid his own. In one
of his publications he had described a person named
Hart as a " peculiar fibber, a slanderer, and a
mouthing scamp." He did so because he knew it was
true. He had slandered witness at a public meeting, and
was proved to have told an untruth, and he spoke of
him in this manner when he refused to make an apology.
Only three numbers of the Insurance Monitor were pub-
lished, and the last number appeared on the day this
action was commenced. The "monster advertisement,"
as it was called, was the principal cause of the Monitor
being published. Twenty-five thousand copies of the
first number were printed, and he directed a copy to be
sent to every subscriber of the Unity whose name ap-
peared in the advertisement at his own expense. This
exhausted about four thousand copies. Copies were
also taken by the following insurance offices :—The
Union, 1,000 ; West of England, 500 ; Sun, 1,000 ; ,