The Sun.
London, England, 1833-11-21 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF TIIE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

It does not appear that any of those among
our brother journalists who have most strongly
censured the recent conduct of Lord Durham,

in proceeding against one newspaper for origi-
nating, and one or to o others for copying, a
scandalous libel upon his Lordship in his cha-
racter as a private citizen, have undertaken either
to justify that particular libel, or to defend the
practice, too general with worthless individuals,
of launching their calumnies at personal reputa-
tion, in that confidence of impunity which
springs from the well-known disproportion be-
tween the number of libels published, and of
those against which either actions or prosecu-
tions have been instituted. It is not the first
time that we have declared our full concurrence
in the sentiment of discontent and indignation
whiich prevails so widely amongst our more
respectable Contemporaries, and the great body
of intelligent men throughout the country,
with regard to the mixture of injustice arid
inconsistency to be found in some portions
of the English law of libel. That the mere
disclosure of a demonstrable truth, respecting
the public conduct of a public man, should
subject the party who writes or circulates that
truth, to legal punishment,—that the party
prosecuted should be tongue-tied, and prevented
by the rules of law, from giving in evidence
facts which would have made it apparent that he
uttered no syllable of slander, and that he merely
informed the public of truths which went to
determine the rightful claims of individuals to
offices of trust and power,—that every just
principle of law should be so smothered by
barbarous technicality and fiction, as to screen
the wrong doer, and to chastise the detector,
thus assuming that the discovery of guilt is more
mischievous to society than its unpunished per-
petration ;—all this must appear to a sane mind
an extravagance hardly to be credited of any
civilized race of men. Again, that a man may
be punished in his purse and person for words
of which he may not plead the truth when pro-
secuted, but of the truth of which, under an-
other form of proceeding, he may, by going
into evidence, save both his person and his
purse, is an inconsistency as ludicrous as the
first-mentioned injustice is deplorable. That (to
offer an additional example of the equity of our
libel law) a London or any other newspaper should
be fined (or the printer be imprisoned) for
copying— and avowing that it copies —an
article of local intelligence from a provincial
prie.t, which the editor must naturally sup-
pose to be cognizant of the facts which it
promulgates, is a still further reason surely for
demanding, on behalf of the community, a
revisal of that whole department of English law.
There is one circumstance with regard to actions,
as well as prosecutions for libel, which cannot
be safely overlooked, viz., the facility with which
the full meaning of the most serious libel may
in many cases be conveyed in terms which yet
no stretch of legal inuendo can ever be made
to bring effectually within the grasp of any law,
but of one under which the most innocent or
praiseworthy language might on some occasions
be construed into libel. As the matter at pre-
sent stands, the uncertainty of the law for the
so-called defence of reputation, and chastise-
ment of libellous offenders, is a grievance
hardly tolerable. The indefinite power of the
" inuendo" leaves so much to the discretion, or,
in other words, to the temper of the jury, that
no publisher who, with the most upright inten-
tions, names an individual, whether in public
life or private, and relates of him a fact to which
any degree of animadversion, direct or implied,
is appended, can have the slightest confidence
that he may not be found guilty of libel.
Some modern lawyer, when asked to define a
libel, stated that it was anything written or spoken,
at which any man or any woman chose to take
offence. And, unfortunately, this comes so
near the practical signification of the term, that
not only in so far as concerns newspapers may
the most temperate and conscientious editor be
in alarm, lest the most innoxious paragraph may
be pounced upon and made the subject of in -
formation, indictment, or action for damages by
an irritable party, or his rapacious attorney, but,
what is no unnatural consequence of the oppres-
sions frequently practised under it, the libel law
itself, which might assuredly be made a whole-
some safeguard to private character, and to the
peace of families, has become what, if it were a
real protection, and nothing else, it could never
be—an object of dislike and terror to the great
bulk of the community. This is an effect of
clumsy legislation, however designed for the en-
forcement of a useful principle, which cannot
be too deeply lamented. In the first place, in-
dividuals, ever so seriously aggrieved, may well
be afraid of resorting to the legal remedy, from
an apprehension that the general odium attached
to prosecutions, and even to actions for libel,
would tend to bias the minds of the jury against
any party seeking redress through such a channel,
whilst the consequence of a defeat must be to
fortify the impression already stamped against the
plaintiff, and to give increased credit, as well as
circulation, to the calumny. Secondly, it is
too obvious that a certain portion of the press,
conducted by adventurers, without shame or
principle, without place in decent society, having
neither property nor character at stake, and
therefore nothing to lose by a prosecution, are
encouraged by the uncertainty of the law of
libel, and by the repugnance of individuals less
desperate than themselves to run the risk of an
appeal to it ; and therefore, like other gamblers,
are ever eager to try their luck against all who
are most respectable and estimable in society,
by launching against them the most atrocious
falsehoods. This characteristic of a portion—
s very small one, we are proud to say—of the
London press, and of a portion somewhat
larger of the country press, which, though but
local in its circulation and influence, is more
than suspected of an ignoble subserviency to fac-
tions of which London is the focus, must have
struck all observant persons to be of comparatively
modern date. It commenced about the year
1821, and has spread and ripened to the present
hour. Now, it behoves the larger and more re-
putable division of the periodical press of England
to consider how its members may in future be
best protected, not only against the abuse of
justice under the existing law, but against the
results of an abuse of liberty by their own un-
worthy brethren. From the malignant and base
attacks upon public and private character in-
dulged in by the latter class of journals, it is
too manifest that the general reputation of the
press itself has suffered. The discredit thus
inflicted on its general management must go far
to impair its beneficial power, and by weakening
the influence of even its best founded censures,
must render all men more insensible to what
might otherwise be the most healthy restraint
upon dishonesty or vice, because it would be
regarded as the true representative of unbiassed
public opinion. The reckless and desperate