The Sun.
London, England, 1841-04-15 00:00:00

ACTION FOR SCANDA L.

(From the Boulogne Gazette.)
PARSONS v. PRESBURY.—This case came on for
hearinaa before the JUge-de-inix, on Monday last. The
defendant was charged with having, during a period of
several months, been in the habit of traducing the cha-
racter of plaintiff, inasmuch that she had stated, that he
had obtained a large sum of money from a widow lady,
to be placed out at interest in her behalf; that, instead
of go applying it, he had appropriated it to his own use,
v and was living in Boulogne upon the money thus ac-
quired ; the result of which was, that the widow lady
had been reduced to great misery, and ultimately died
in a workhouse. The defendant was farther charged
with asserting that plaintiff had been turned out of a
bank in which he had been clerk, and was a man with
whom no person should associate.
The first witness called was Mr. Cookesley ; he
stated that, about three weeks back, he was with his
father in the Rue Neuve-Chaussee, where they met 1
the defendant, who informed them that a Mr. Clarke
and a Mr. Bouquet stated that the plaintiff had appro- I
priated to himself a large sum of money placed confi-
dentially in his hands, beloiging to a widow in Eng-
land, and had fled to France with it, the consequence of '
which was, that tie widow lady died in misery in a
workhouse England.
On !;is cross-examination by M. Redouin, he denied
ttat the defendant said she repeated the story only as
she heard it, but did not herself believe it ; on the con-
trary, she said she believed it, and thought it right to
inform the plaintiff's friends of it, that they should have
no more connexion with a man of such a character.
M. Sauvage was next examined, but declared he had
heard nothing from the defendant on the subject.
Mr. William Cookesley confirmed the previous evi-
dence given by his son.
M. Gerard Perneau—The defendant, had said to his
wife that plaintiff had taken away a considerable sum of
money from an English lady, who had died in misery,
but he did not believe a word of it.
Mr. George Manly deposed that the defendant told
him that plaintiff was a very bad man ; that a lady in
England placed a considerable sum of money in his
hands to be put out to interest for her benefit, that in-
stead of doing so he left England and came to Boulagne
to live upon the money, and that the lady had subse-
quently died in a u orkhouse. That on account of his
bad conduct plaintiff had been dismissed from a situa-
tion that he held in a bank. .
This witness was asked the following questions by de-
fendant's counsel :

Did you not say to the defendant, three weeks ago,
that Bouquet told you that he knew the plaintiff well,
and that. the less you knew of him the better ?—Yes ;
and I also said the same thing to her, in the course of
conversation, two months ago.
'When you saw Mr. Bouquet, did you not endeavour to
obtain from him all the particulars you could relative to
the plaintiff, and did he net reply that phintiff was dis•
missed from his situation in a bank, and that he was a
man he should ba ashamed to associate with 7—Yes.
Did you not first mention to the defendant the alle-
gation that plaintiff had been dismissed from his situa-
tion in the bank ?—No.

Did you not say to the defendant that her conduct
in the whole affair: was honourable ?—When I spoke
to the defendant about what she had been stating,
she informed me that ail she had said she had heard
from Clarke and Bouquet, for she knew very little
about plaintiff, he and his wife havh,g only once drank
tea at her house, and that she had repeated it to ad
plaintiff's friends, having every confidence in its truth,
Bouquet having been a long time a clerk in the same
banking house with plaintiff; I said her conduct was so
far honourable that the story had net originated with her.
The defendant was then examined by the Court as
to what she had said of plaintiff, when she acknowledged
that she had stated all that had been deposed to by the
Messrs. Ccokesley, Mr. Pcrncau and Mr. Manly, tut
then it •vas only confidentially.
M. Hedouin then addressed the Court in behalf a
the defendant, stating that all she had done was men-
tioning confidentially to others the assertiors of Clarke
and Bouquet, who were the persons that should have
been brought irito Gault, and not the defendant. Why
were they not prosecuted ? He must suppose because
they could prove what they had asserted. What the
defendant had done was innocent and harmless. She
knew nothing of the plaintiff. She repeated in private
convers ition what others had told her.
M. Cannier then replied at length to the arguments
of defendant's Counsel, when

The Judge de Pais delivered judgment, condemning
defendant to pay sfr. fine, 150 fr. damages, and costs.

ROMAN NEWSPAPERS.

The Romans, though we are apt to overlook the
fact, had registers of politics and intelligence, which
were really not unlike our own newspapers in their con-
tents, but immeasurably inferior in the mode of circu-
lation. The journals of the senate and national conven-
tions long contained little more than entries resembling
those in our collected Acts of Parliament. These fur-
nished most of the materials from which till 625 the
Pontiffs compiled their annals ; and there is also proof
that, after the Republic had extended its dominions,
these official journals were regularly copied and trans-
mitted to public men living at a distance. But these
sources were not enough. Every man abroad had his
correspondents in Rome ; and, when the task of col-
lecting news became more difficult, several persons
assumed newsmongcring as a trade, taking in short-
hand notes of the proceedings at public meetings,
and selling copies of them as well as of the com-
mon gossip of the day, and the official journals.
Julius Cmsar, in 694, established a regular system
for recording the deliberations both of the Senate and
the Conventions, in a form much like our reports of
Parliamentary debates ; and he allowed these accounts
to be copied and freely circulated. Although Augustus
stopped the publication of the reports, the restraint
was soon afterwards withdrawn ; and even after their
introduction by Julius, these and all other archives of
the State were so unreservedly open to the public, and
their contents were diffused in so many shapes, that we
are often uncertain whether the sources to which the
Roman authors refer are these official reports, or the
notes of professional short-hand writers, or, finally,
those collections of common news that were handed
about with the other pieces of information. But we
are less curious to disentangle this confusion than to
learn some of the subjects which were discussed in the
news-journals. The accounts of the political debates
embraced the acts and resolutions, the rescripts of the
emperors, the reports of Magistrates or Committees,
the names of the voters (like that of Thrasea Pa3tus,
whose silent dissent was watched with such eagerness
by the provincials), the speeches, their reception, and
the squabbles of the debaters. Stray articles of law-
intelligance seem to have found their was• into these
collections. There were likewise occasioisal notices ex-
tracted from the local registers of births, and announce-
ments of marriages, divorces, deaths, and funerals ; as
also descriptions of new public buildings, shows ofgladia-
tors, and such ordinary themes. Julius Caesar, who
read the news-sheet every morning, gave strict orders
that Cicero's witty sayings should be regularly added
to the other current matter. The journals, too, like
our own, were the receptacles for all tragical and mar-
vellous occurrences; and Pliny derived from them many
of the odd stories inserted in his Encyclopcedia, among
which the following may be cited :—The Gazettes re-
lated, that on the day when Cicero defended Milo,
there descended a shower of bricks; that under Au-
gustus a burgher of Fassulas walked to the Capitol, in
a procession formed by his own sixty-three descendants ;
that when a slave of the unfortunate Titus Sabinus had
been executed by Tiberius, his dog watched the corpse,
carried food to its mouth, and, on its being thrown into
the Tiber, swam after it, and strove to bring it to land ;
and that in the reign of Claudius a phoenix from Egypt
was publicly exhibited in Rome ; which last story, how-
ever, Pliny truly pronounces to be a manifest invention.
—ltaly and the Italians..

CHURCHMEN MUST BE PAPISTS

Properly speaking, every Tory ought to be a Papist
and it is a strange enough thing, considering the matter
on grounds of reason, that the British Tory nominally is
not only not a Papist, but a fierce denouncer, and (what
is bad) a vile calumniator of Popery, for a man should
not calumniate or speak falsely of any ones not even of
the devil. Much less should the Tories speak falsely of
the Romanists ; for if Toryism be a thing of any or-
ganism or consistency ; if it exist by virtue of any inde-
pendent, moral, and intellectual vitality, it must acknow-
ledge the Roman Pope as the most c,ousistent, thorough.
going, philosophical, practical Tor. 7, that the history
of the world exhibits—not even excepting Napoleon
But the truth of the matter is, that no political
or religious party (and British. Toryism, least of all)
represents purely or consistently a system of prin-
ciples : parties represent interests ; and it may
be the interest of a man's ',Ran on many occasions
and of his purse on some occasions (for we would not
think altogether basely of Ivarnan nature), to screw his
head into a contradiction. British Toryism, or Con-
servatism, as it now
Pl'eases to be called (" the world is
governed by names,")
represents the stable principle of
society generally,
as necessary to t' f.nd in this regard may be said to be
oe constitution of society as the bones
are to Cie bo
heart and in the blood, which we of the Movement
though the principle of life is in the
boast ours elves to be. Now, it is manifest that the
Pope sto•
frarn'...-raarla of the Church ; be represents the stable
.ids in history as a sort of osteology, and firm
principle of the Christianity of Churchmen ; so long as
tie exist: he exists as a living and visible pledge of the
indrifeeti ble interests of the Christian hierarchy. All
Churche nm (who are mostly Tories), therefore, and all
Church Tories (that is to say, the great majority of
Tories--; for the Church in these times, we are told, is
" the or,; ly cock that will fight")—ought naturally to
acknoiyl,3, Ige the Pope as the great founder of their
f4itla or „stt least as an ancient and vsnerasle ally ;
doughty-, though not alway s a wise, ditlippion.—Tait' s
Mogrc.iireik.

EVENING EDITION.

CORN AVERAGE .t 2.

-- ---
,_
N,
UEERAL, AVERAGE P
For the Week ended April 9, lE
the inspectors in the different
Wales, per Imperial Quarter.
Whoa, f4s. 0:i. Oats ...,
Barley 3:2s. Ed.' Rye ...

r
i'y

'RICES OF BRITISH COOL A
41, made tip from the Return.;
Cities and Towns in England
'''''''''''''''' Y5l.- IBr WEEKS.'ceasane ' ''''''''''''''''''''''''
OATS. I RYE. BEANS
March 5 63 6 32 9 22 8 •
36 6 39 6 39.
12 63 11 32 11 22 11 35 1 39 9 " 1
19 63 9 33 2 23 0 36 6 39 7 •" f
29 39 64 43211 23 5 34, 939 I, V April
9 64 0 32 8 23 6 35 7, 39 4, "
INIPERIAL AGGREGATE AVER ""AGES OF THE SIX w „
5,1,
Wheat 63s. 111. Oats 225. 11d. 8ean5........ .395. 0,
Barley. :Ps. 1Id, I Rye
DITTIES ON FOREIGN CORN.
Wheat 23s Pd. Oats I
Barley 133. 109. Rye
99dd.. I
t,8eea5ane5,.................rit;.1

AVERAGES OF TI:
Week ending WHEAT. !EARLY.