The Sun.
London, England, 1856-12-02 00:00:00

85 (3.

T.FIE LAW OP LIBEL.

QUEEN'S BENCR, DECBMBER I.
(Before a Common Jury.)
TOMMY, SEN., V. CLEMENT AND OTHERS.
The plaintiff brought t.h,s action to rec aver cornpmsa-
Han for an article published in the Observer, which km
alleged contained serious im ati ms upon his character.
The defendants pleaded a justification.
The plaintiff conducted his own case in person, and
Mr. Knowles, and Mr. Clark appeared for the defendants
It appeared that the plaintiff had long been engaged in
litigation in the Dublin Chancery Courts, and all the de-
cisions being against him he Appealed to the Ilotn,e of
Lords, and the judgment of their lordships haying con•
firmed the former decisions, he published a pamphlet which
he himself sold in the streets, imputing the chaKge
of conspiracy and treason to Lord Cranworth, Lord St,.
Leonard's, the Right Hon. Francis Blackbrirne, ex-Chan•
cellor of Ireland ; the Right Hon. T. B. Smith, the
Master of 'the Rolls of Ireland ; and other office's of
state. When he was in the act of disposing of some of
the..e publications in Pall-mall, a gentleman, wbo gave
the name of Smith, but whom the plaintiff imagined to
be a nobleman, gave him into custody, and he wee taken
to Vine-street police-station.. The inspector on duty,
however, dismissed the case; and, according to plaintiffa
statement, both the superintendent. and the magislrate to
whom he appied on the following day refused to tu,nish
him with the name of his accuser. He than stp.: a let-
ter, stating the circumstances of his case, to the Daily
News, and that journal published this letter, as e,ell
acs
an article commenting upon the proceedings before tie
magistrate, and making some severe animadversions
upon the conduct of the police in the matter. Oa the
following day, the 17th of August, in the present year,
the Observer published the alleged libel, which consis
of an article written in answer to that in the Daily
_News, and speaking of the plaintiff as an insane itn!iyi-
dual, whose statement was "full of sound and fury,
signifyiug nothing"—as a person who wont about the
streets of Landon to bellow cut a libel, attacking the
character of all who were concerned in giving ju g nent
in his different suits—and likewise as a parson. wh exer-
cised a criminal calling in vending publications of such

a nature.
Lord Campbell inquired of the plaintiff whether he
intended to justify the charge of conspiracy and treason
which he made in his pact phlet against Lord,Chancellor
Cranworth and the other high legal functionaries ?
The plaintiff said he asserted the truth of every word
in the pamphlet.
Mr. Knowles contended that the 'article in que4ticia
was only a fair and legitimate comment on a matter of
public importance, and contained nothing libellous.
The son of the plaintiff, in the course of his examina-
tion, stated that 300 of the pamphlets had been sold it
one day. The price was ld., and as many as five editions,
of 1,000 copies each, had been dispised of. The sale sens-
ibly fell off after the publication of the a:ticle sin the
Observer, and had now ceased altogether. (Laughter.)
His father obtained a living by selling them.
Lord Campbell remarked that as the defendants had not
placed the plea of not guilty on the record, they were
bound to prove their plea of justificaticn, and the question
for the jury would be whether they had done so or not.
Mr Knowles said the defendants were in a position of
considerable difficulty, as they could not bring over fr•mt
Dublin all the witnesses necessary to disprove the charges
in the plaintiff's pamphlet ; but if the jury were, obliged
to give the plaintiff a verdict, he trusted that as the
defendants had not been actuated by,any animus aaamist
him, they would be of opinion that the smallest-possible
amount of damages would satisfy the justice of the case.
The plaintiff, in reply, read a long appeal to the jury
from a written document.
Lord Campbell, in summing up,' said that every one
must commiserate the unfortunate old gentleman who
had brought this action, when it was seen that those
who ought to give him good adVice, and prevent hint
from further exposing himself, seemed disposed to incite
him to doing further mischief. (During the trial the
plaintiff had been, very actively assisted by his son.)
The plaintiff, whom they must suppose to be in his right
mind, appeated to labour under some strong delusion
as to the conduct of certain high legal functionaries,
both here and in Ireland, and to have sold about the
streets of London a penny pamphlet accusing them of
conspiraCy and treason.. On the face of it that pamphlet.
t,was a scandalous libel, and the police were perfectly
justified in taking him into custody. His lordship then
observed that, by putting simply a ,plea of justification
on the record, the defendants undertook to prove every-
thing they alleged in the article: They had c early
proved the material part Of it namely, that
the plaintiff was taken into 'custody for selling
this scandalous libel ; and the son of the plaintiff, who
seemed to be his prompter in more senses than one, ad-
mitted that the plaintiff was earning his livelihood by
selling the pamphlets, and that the sale had fallen off
since the article in question appeared. It was a sad
thing that a man should earn his bread hg selling libels
of this grave nature in the public streets ; and the fact
of the sale falling off was rather a matter for rejoicing
than a grouqd for asking for damages; but the other
allegations' in the article were rn,t proved, and with
respect to these they must find a verdict for the plaintiffl,
but he was inclined to think that tiler tly nominal
damages would satisfy the justico of the ca-e. If they
were of opinion that the newspaper acted with a malici-
One motive towards the plaintiff, and that he really
suffered any damage by their impr,per conduct, they
would give compensation accordingly ; but if they
thought there was no malice whatever on the part of the
defendants and that the plaintiff sustained no real injury,
they would only give a farthing damages.
The Jury almost immediately returned a verdict for
the plaintiff—Damages, one farthing.