The Sun.
London, England, 1851-04-03 00:00:00

The reports on the Mutiny and Marine Mutiny Bills
were brought up and agreed to.
The House then adjourned.

Thirteen years ago Sir ROBERT PEEL delivered
that memorable oration in Threadneedle-street
which ultimately led to the foundation of a great
party based upon the principles of Conservatism.
A recollection of this circumstance appears to have
revived during the last few days the fading hopes of
the Protectionists. Hence the rather disproportioned
significance associated in their minds with the enter-
tainment given yesterday evening by the Merchant
Taylors' Company to Lord STANLEY and his political
adherents. It was presumed that a similar banquet,
given in the same hall, under somewhat kindred
auspices, must necessarily lead to results almost
identical in their character. PEEL had formerly
overwhelmed the MELBOURNE Administration.
STANLEY; by adopting the like tactics, and discharg-
ing the artillery of his rhetoric from the same quarter,
was to scatter dismay through Downing-street and as
effectually to destroy the remaining forces of the
RUSSELL Government. Now, to our thinking, imi-
tations are almost inevitably failures, or, at any rate,
only so far successful as to derive an evanescent im-
portance from the glory cast around them by the
remembrance of their prototypes. It has, there-
fore, been to us but little cause for astonishment to
find the expected manifesto of the Stanleyites dege-
nerating into after-dinner eloquence, their looked-for
declaration of pringiples degraded to complimentary
twaddle, and their anticipated thunderclap a mere
Brummagem Demonstration.
We are perfectly aware that it may appear little
short of high treason to mention, in language at all
flavoured by derision, any proceedings of tat very
gifted and chivalric statesman who is regarded
by many as the probable successor to the consulship.
His brilliant powers as a rhetorician have been too
frequently displayed by the " Rupert of Debate" to
admit, according to some, of any scornful allusion
being made to his latest, and his not least elaborately
prepared, harangue. We are ready to acknowledge,
of course, as every one gifted with the most mediocre
faculties of appreciation must perforce acknowledge,
that Lord STANLEY is, among all living orators, per-
haps one of the most scholarly, as he is unquestionably
one of the most distinguished. Nevertheless, we must
at once avow that in his speech of yesterday we can no-
where discover those lofty claims to admiration either
in reference to good taste or to logical acumen. Let any
unprejudiced man read that speech dispassionately,
and we defy him to commend the speaker conscien-
tiously in either of those particulars. Let him read it
without knowing beforehand whose lips it fell from,
and we defy him, if he be an unprejudiced man, to
peruse it without feelings very nearly approaching to
absolute contempt—contempt too profound for indig-
nation. Why, as a mere specimen of declamation the
harangue dwindles down to veritable insignificance.
And as a flagrant defiance of all the proprieties of
political etiquette, it stands altogether beyond the
reach of comparison. Remembering only too
bitterly the death of one of the greatest statesmen
who has ever adorned the annals, or presided over

the destinies of England, the people will listen with
sorrow to the sinister reference made by Lord
STANLEY to the most notable act in the life of that
illustrious man ; when, disclaiming any intention to
wound the memory of the departed, the Noble Lord
hinted with a dark and disingenuous significance that
he would " draw a veil" over that recollection. What
posthumous slander is this ? Directed too against

the vanished genius of one as noble in nature as the
very noblest of his antagonists, as elevated in pa-
triotism, and as spotless i❑ reputation ! And this,

moreover, from one who was formerly glad to be
numbered among the ranks of his supporters, the
Roland of the Lords, and the knight-errant of
the Legislature ! But all this, we may be told,
is allowable just for the sake of rhetorical colouring,
as a prelude, a foil, and a contrast to the panegyric
immediately afterwards pronounced by Lord STAN-
LEY upon another departed leader of the Commons
House of Parliament. A panegyric on whom ? On
one endowed by nature with a gallantry so conspi-
cuous as to be little less than Quixotic.• On a brave,
out-spoken, resolute, and unflinching upholder of
doctrines that might otherwise have been altogether
abandoned in desperation. In a word, a panegyric
on the memory of Lord GEORGE BENTINCK. Some
eulogistic allusions to that daring champion of the
Protectionists was naturally almost demanded,
if it were only out of considerations of
gratitude. An encomiastic allusion to his efforts
immediately before his sudden and lamented departure
was about the most graceful tribute that could possi-
bly have been offered by Lord STANLEY. And any-
thing in this way we should—Free-traders though we
are—have hearkened to with a respectful and sympa-
thising deference. But the exaggerated and prepos-
terous adulation indulged in by the chieftain of the
Country Party when referring to the late representa-
tive of King's Lynn, is so nauseous from its extrava-
gance, that while we esteem and even admire the
memory of the eulogised, we laugh to scorn the
eulogiser. Why, the panegyric scarcely falls short of
being an actual apotheosis. The manes of a departed
demigod could hardly be propitiated with more hyper-
bolical flattery. The greatest hero that ever lived
would look little under the trappings of such over-
gilded compliment. And all this is effected, more-
over, through the medium of claptrap sentiments ex-
pressed in the tritest phraseology. "To say that he
had his failings," exclaimed Lord STANLEY, in a tone
of magnificent concession, " and that he committed
errors, is to say no more than that he was a mortal
man." We fancy we have heard those words before
—just once or twice. " But his failings," continued
the eulogist, " were failings that lean to virtue's
side' [an expression applied already some few
dozen times to others besides the village parson of
GoLDssirrn] ; and his errors were the too vehement
ebullitions of a generous and indignant spirit, that
could not curb the language which flowed to his
tongue when he witnessed what he thought in-

justice." A rather ungraceful reminder, this, of vi-
tuperations it were well poor Lord GEORGE had
never indulged in—seeing that they tended to accuse
wrongfully a great and pure nature of conduct the
most dastardly, leading by inference even to a charge
of secret assassination ! To return, however, from
this sickening stab in the dark to a dead man slum-
bering in an honourable grave—the orator pursues
his theme with an undiminished glibness of
abounding platitudes and diluted commonplaces.
" That noble heart," he says, " has long
ceased to beat [a rather,,threadbare method of re-
ferring to a dissolution] ; and the untutored elo-
quence which flowed from those lips is now heard
no more"—a remark, withal, not less hackneyed in
expression, and somewhat blunderingly intro-
duced, seeing that it calls only too:'painfully to the
remembrance of those who have ever listened
to the departed nobleman, the distressing hesitation of
his delivery, the scarcely comprehensible entangle-
ment of his argument, and the interrupted manner of
his articulation—very nearly amounting to a
positive
impediment of speech. Such were among the most
tawdry adornments of that classic oration in which
Lord STANLEY yesterday bid for the red boxes, and
the red tape, and, sweetest of all, the red, red,gold
inseparable from the prerogatives and responsibilities'
of the British Government.

Most of the other speakers at the banquet last
evening would seem to have been infected by the
disease of flattery, with which the Noble Leader
of the Protectionists was so lamentably tor-
mented. Among these must be especially
particularised the Honourable and Learned Gen_
tlernan the representative of 111idhurst. Oue al-
most laughs to hear the grandiloquence of his toast
to a personage " equally distinguished in the camp
and iu the Cabinet"—could it be the health; of his
Grace the Duke of WELLINGTON ? No, but—" the
tried friend of the agricultural interest, the Duke
of R,cum„D." Were the object of the panegyric
to have asked those who evidenced astonishment at
the non sequitur,
suredly they might have been tempted to answer, as
lixsiLET anBWers POLONIIIS----" Excellent well, you
are a fishmonger r'

One honourable and almost solitary exception to
this display
of weakness or sycophancy was visible
in the Honourable
Gentleman the Protectionist
leader of the House of Commons,
a popular repre-
sentative) according to the appropriate expressions of
Lord STANLEY)
" whose talents for conducting a
party had been proved in many a well-foughtfield ;

and whose weight, ability, and eloquence were
the admiration of his friends and the terror of
his enemies." The eloquent and well considered
speech in which Mr. DISRAELI responded to this
emphatic tribute of admiration, and to some extent
also, we might even say, of gratitude, was the solitary
counterpoise to the otherwise distressing and unre-
deemed indecorums which characterized the de-
monstration. For inasmuch, therefore, as his
oration tended to mitigate the disgust with
which the entire entertainment must have been
otherwise regarded, the members of the Protectionist
party have new cause for thankfulness to the repre-
sentative of Buckinghamshire.

Actions for libels against public journalists will
speedily cease to be fashionable. Thanks to consti-
tutional British Judges, and honest and intelligent
British Juries, the liberty of the Press is at length
placed on a solid foundation. While we are so fortu-
nate as to possess such men as the Loan CHIEF JUSTICE
of England, Lord Chief Justice JERVIS, Mr. Justice
ERLE, and their distinguished and able coadjutors
presiding on the Bench of Justice, and impartially
administering the laws of the land, but little encou-
ragement will be afforded to needy or vindictive plain-
tiffs to bring forward frivolous or unfounded com.
plaints, in order to gratify their malice or cupidity at
the expense of the fourth estate. Neither will specu-
lative attorneys be quit© so willing to carry on such
suits, seeing that "a farthing damages will (no longer)
carry costs." The " good old time," when 5001., or
1,0001., or 1,5001. verdicts could be obtained, when
numerous suits might be instituted against every
person in any way connected with a publication,
for one and the same cause of action, have departed,
we trust, never to return. They are buried in " the
tomb of all the Capulets," and long may it before any
judge or jury can be found to make any effort for
their resuscitation.

Since last Trinity term we have had to comment on
the of such actions, two against ourselves (by the
same individual and for the same alleged cause), and one
each against our contemporaries the Weekly Dispatch,
the Times, and the Daily .News. The results were
similar in every case ; verdicts for the defendants, or
for merely nominal damages were returned. The
plaintiffs gained nothing, except the privilege of bear-
ing their own costs, and, in some instances, of defray-
ing those of the defendants ! Another experiment
was also tried last week, but there was still no
change. The plaintiff and the plaintiff's attorney re-
ceived but little encouragement from a special jury of
the county of Norfolk, who, after hearing an admi-
rable and lucid charge from the LORD CHIEF JUSTICE
of the Common Pleas, returned a verdict, which was
equivalent to a decision in favour of the defendant,
and assessing damages (in case that decision
should be set aside on a point of law, so
that a new investigation should not be re-
quired under any circumstances) at the smallest coin
of the realm, " one farthing," the usual remunera-
tion for parties who coma into court for the alleged
purpose of vindicating their characters without
clean hands. Our respected, uncompromising,
and talented contemporary, the Norwich Mer-
cury, has thus fought the good fight on behalf of
its order. It was on this occasion placed in the posi-
tion of champion of public journalism, which suf-
fered nothing in its hands, for ably and manfully it
discharged the onerous and important duty, and per-
formed its devoir in true chivalric style.
There was a considerable family resemblance be-
tween the cases of ABBOTT B. BACON and of
`DICKS v. LAWSON, to which we directed the public
attention towards the end of February. In the
latter case the action was brought by a dis-
missed turnkey of Marlborough-street Police-
court, who was discharged from his situation on
" suspicion " of conniving at the escape of a
notorious convict. The reporter of the Times, how-
ever, in speaking of the transaction six months after
it had occurred, unfortunately omitted the word "sus-
picion." The name of the plaintiff was not men-
tioned, and few, indeed, could have identified the
party alluded to. The omission of the single word
however, entitled the plaintiff to a verdict, but the
jury made that a matter of but little consequence, by
assessing the damages at " one farthing !" So that
the only practical difference between the verdict for
the plaintiff and one for the defendant was the one-
fourth part of a penny. We say the only practical
difference, for the plaintiff having sued in forma
pauperis no costs could have been obtained from him,
even had there been a decision in favour of the
defendant.

In the other case the plaintiff was not "a dis-
charged turnkey," but a " resigned superintendent
of police," who had been charged by the Norwich
Mercury with having purloined various articles from
the shop of a chemist at Derebam. There could
be no doubt that this charge led to the " resignation"
of the plaintiff; but the publication had nothing to
do with that resignation, for it had taken place before
the publication of the article complained of ; the
orders of the 10th and 27th of December, 1850, pro-
duced in evidence, having spoken of the " resigna-
tion" as having been accepted, while the article only
appeared on the 28th of December, after the mis-
chief had been done. It afforded, however, a favourable
opportunity for the plaintiff to attempt the retrieval
of his damaged reputation. It was much pleasanter
to stand his trial for the alleged felony as a plaintiff
in an action for libel than as a prisoner in the dock.
In the former case, if acquitted, he would recover his
costs and expenses, as well A 3 a handsome pecuniary
recompense from the defendant; but if the decision
should be adverse, the only injury would be a liabi-
lity to the defendant for the costs of the defence, a
liability which, under all thecircumstances of the case,
Mr. BACON may find it exceedingly difficult to enforce;
whereas, had the question been tried by a criminal
prosecution , in place of by a civil proceeding, he
would have borne his own costs and expenses, re-
ceiving no pecuniary compensation in the event of
an acquittal; while if there were a conviction, he
would have expiated his offence by undergoing a
suitable punishment. We need scarcely say which
branch of the alternative was most agreeable to the
gallant ex-superintendent. He selected the civil
tribunal for reasons that may easily be understood,
and the result is known. The jury declared him to
be guilty of one of the felonies charged against him
in the plea of justification, and in the event of there
being anything to set aside that verdict, they assessed
the damages at a farthing on the other charges which
had not been sustained.

The results of those various cases seem to indicate
the necessity for some change in the law, restricting
the power of bringing such actions for libel against
public journals. GOD furbid that we should
prevent any man from vindicating his cha-
racter if it had been unjustly assailed.
But an action for damages is not the best
way of retrieving an injured reputation. It is in-
variably considered that a criminal information,wbere
the court exercises a discretionary power, before
sanctioning such a mode of proceeding, and where,
in order to obtain the necessary permission, a com-
plainant must come into court with clean hands,
denying, on his own affidavit, the truth and accuracy
of tyhing,
eaccusation that has been put forward, is the
proper and satisfactory method of proceeding, if he
set a just value on his own character.
'We would suggest then that some such preliminary
investigation should take place before one or more of
the judges before an action for libel for any thing that
appeared in a public journal, and that the presiding
judge or judges should be enabled to refuse permis-
sion to bring such an action, save on the condition of
the plaintiff giving full security for the defendant's
costs in the event of an unfavourable verdict being
returned against him. There would be no hardship in
this to any person who was really aggrieved, although
it would put a total stop to such actions as those
brought by the " dismissed turnkey" or "the resigned
somesuperintendent,"
oafndpowunods to
would have P
savedroPriettloires loofss
ercury. thoe
Tines and of the Norwich Mf

LEGAL APPOINTMENTS.—Mr. G. Turner has been
appointed to the new Vice-Chancellorship. The Mister of
the Rolls has appointed Mr. Brett, of the Chancery bar, his
chief secretary, and Mr. Knight his first gentleman of the
chamber. Ne other changes have been made in consequence
of the appointment of Sir John Romilly to the Rolls, his
honour having, with a kind regard to the services of the
persons holding office, declined to avail himself of his right
to exercise his patronage to the full extent. —Morning
Paper.
THE NEW LAW OFFICERS OF THE CROWN.....SiT
John Romilly, the new Master of the Rolls, and Sir Alex-
ander Cockburn, the new Attorney-General, were yesterday
re-elected, without opposition, for Devonport and Southamp-
ton reepectiveln