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

ACTION FOR SCANDAL.

(From the Boulogne Gazette.)
P AnsoNg v. PRESBURY.—This case came on for
hearing, before the Juge-de-paix, on Monday last. The
defendant was charged with having, during a period of
several monthF, 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 so applying it, he had appropriated it to his own use,
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.

no first witness called was Mr. Cookesley ; he
stated that, about three weeks back, he was with his
father in the Rue Neure-Chaussee, where they met
the defendant, who informed them that a Mr. Clarke
and a Mr. Bouquet stated that the plaintiff had appro—
priated to himself a large sum of money placed confi—
dentially in his hands, belonging to a widow in Eng—
land, and had fled to France with it, the consequence of
which was that the widow lady died in misery in a
workhouse in England.

Oa his cross-examination by M. Hedouic, he denied
that 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 sad 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
hint 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 lett England and came to Boulogne
to live upon the money, and that the lady had subse-
quently died in a workhouse. That on account of his
bad conduct plaintiff had been dismissed from a situa-
tion that he heM 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 plaintiCf, and did he not reply that plaintiff was dis-
missed from his situation in a bank, and that he was a
man ha should be ashamed to associate with ?—Yes.
Did you not first mention to the defe.ndant the alle-
gation that plaintiff had been dismissed from his sjtua
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 all she had said she had heard
from Clarke and Bouquet, for she knew very little
about plaintiff, he and his wife havil,g only once drank
tea at her house, and that she had repeated it. to all
plaintiff's friends, having every confidence in its truth,
Bouquet having been a long tame a clerk in the same
banking house with plaintiff; I said her conduct was so
far honourable that the story had not originated with her.

The defendant was then examined by the gourt as
to what she bad said of plaintiff, when she acknowledged
that she bad stated all that had been depoed to by the
Messrs. Cookesley, Mr. Perneau and Mr. Manly, but
then it was 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 assertions of Clarke
and Bouquet, who were the persons that should have
been brought into Court, and not the defeudant. Why
were they aot prosecuted ? He must suppose because
they could prove what they Lad asserted. What the
defendant had done was innocent and harmless. She
knew nothing of the plaintiff. She repeated in private
conversation what others had told her.

M. Cannier then replied at length to the arguments
of defendant's Counsel, when

The Judge de Paix delivered judgment, condemning
defendant to pay Mr. fine, !Mfr. 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. Those fur-
' nished most of the materials from which till 62! the
Pontiffs compiled their annals ; and there is also proof
that, after the Republic had extended its dominions',
those official journals were regularly copied and trans-
mitted to public men living at a distance. But these
sources were ❑ot enough. Every man abroad had his
correspondents in Rome ; and, when the task of col-
lecting news became more difficult, several persons
assumed nervsmongering 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 Cassar, 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 he copied and freely circulated. Although Augustus
stopped the publication of the reports, the ►estraint
was soon afterwards withdrawn ; and even after their
introducti n 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-band writers, or, fiba)ly,,

those collections of common news that were handi
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 Pmtus,
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-
intelligence seem to have found their way into these
collections. There were likewise occasional 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 Fmsulm 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 Italiani.

CHURCHMEN MUST BE PAPISTS.

Properly speaking, every Tory ought to be a Papist.
and it is a strange enough thing, consideri, the matter
on grounds of reason, that the British Tory nominally is
pi st, but
ofa fierce
Popery, denouncer,
for
a m andau (what
should
inso
bad)
l
vile a
calumniator Papist,
calumniate or speak falsely of any one, not even of
the devil. Much less should the Tories speak falsely of
the Romanists; for if Toryism be a thing of any ya
not
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 • onsistent, thorough-
going, philosophical, practical Tory, 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,s least of all)
represents purely or - _
of .
consistently a system prin-
ciples : parties represent interests ; and it may
be the interest of a man'sheart on many' occasions
and of his purse on some occasions (for we would not
think altogether basely of
human
nature), to screw his
head into a contradiction. British Toryism, or Con-
servatism, as it now pleases to be called (" the world is
governed by names,") represents the stable principle of
society generally, and in this regard may be said to be
as necessary to the constitution of society as the bones
are to the body, though the principle of lire is in the
heart and in the Wood, which we of the Movement
boast ourselves to be. Now, it is manifest that the
Pope stands in history as a sort of osteology, and firm
frame-work of the Church ; he represents the stable
principle of the Christianity of Churchmen ; so long as
he exists, he exists as a living and visible pledge of the
indefectible interests of the Christian hierarchy. All
Churchmen (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 only cock that will fight") h —oug t naturally to
acknowledge the Pope as the great founder of their
faith, or at least as an ancient and venerable ally ; a
doughty, though not always a wise, champion.—Tait's
1 Magazinc.

MORNING EDITION

S PI RIT • of the PUBLIC JOURNALS

FROM THE DAILY FADERS OF YESTERDAY.
(From the Morning Chronicle.)
The Earl of Cardigan cannot allow the public to forget
him for an instant. Ile is one of those unfortunate in,
dividuals who are unable to take
.ts single step nti,hotit
coming in collision with others ; who cannot. act Without
violating some feeling, or running counter to some observ-
ance held in regard by the country. In another column
will be found a letter from a correspondent, which may be
implicitly relied on, giving an account of an occurrence at
Hounslow barracks, in which Lord Cardigan seems to have
outdone himself. The Sabbath in this country is held to be so
far sanctified, that. works of necessity and mercy, are alone
allowable,on that day. On Sunday last the 11th Hussars
were marched into the Riding School for divine. service.
Prayers tura r,lad and a sermon was preached. Oa the
conclusion of diVine service the trumpet-major vi :is or-
dered to make things ready for corporal punishtitent ; and
in this Riding School, and on a Sunday, where not an
honr•lefore the whole regiment were engaged in prayer,
Priv.ite Rogers, of the 11 th Hussars, was tied up nod
receivirg one hundred lashes. His Lordship had
not the decency to d:smiss.the nrn to their quarters and
to reutscrahle the.:l Vi witness the punishment; but, la if
V!e fliggi:g was a continuation of the divine be-vice,
kept tuem in the place till it had takea place.
What would be said if 'the. Sabbath were to be de-
Eeersted by' en execution on that day ? There may be
ce•Cat,lops oo Ai:111,1 SCO ice when to delay for a day ntiVit
injuri.)us; but the punishm,mt on Sunday lea lied no
jastificaton—it was a rio!ent outrage offered t..) the reli-
gion of the cou:try. To add to the indecency, there were
140 men of the I4th Regiment present in the barracks
with the I it) when the flogging took place.. Sir
Berry flardi: ge ioade it a matter of complaint against
G:nieral Evan, that he fs)c.ght a battle in Spain on a Sun_
day. It may happen tht,t t.le reason for fighting on a S.l,:day
is thit tie ~:.v anti(iaied may be lost. by a clay's delay.
Bur. 11.,;g,irg en a S.viday was a gratnito.ii act of incie-

cen,:y— a desecr4tJn Gf a day r,,7t apart for relizioa, oh-
s twine, and f_e'i-g; in ec:orda!:c,, with religion. Wilat

ale t,) ;It p•ayTri uluFt uit the gr6a of tl.e p ;or
bea I Lord sh3uld hove been a
d rot a Clr.leim3. lie would have been the
i,tu'.',ebe,ide the attar.

C. eb

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