The Sun.
London, England, 1834-02-12 00:00:00

and real representation supposes responsibility to a
constituency entitled to demand a constant attend-
ance in Parliament, except in cases of justifiable ab-
sence. And if any practicable plan come before the
House, recommended by a Committee, it will he
difficult to find a feasible pretext for rejecting it.
Last year, when the subject was brought before the
House by the Hon. Member for Colchester (Mr
Harvey), all sorts of objections were offered ; but the
objection which weielied most was that of Lord Al-
thorn, that the specific plan of Mr. Harvey was im-
, prac:icable. Mr. Ward took care to avoid the snare
into which Mr. Harvey fell ; he avoided risking his
plan by a premature exposure. He contented him-
self with stating that he had a plan, by which he
did not doubt that an accurate list of every gentle.
man's votes might be taken, without the loss of
five minutes' time. If the plan be really such that
five manures will give a record of every man's vote
in a division, all objections to it mu-t gtve way.
We may, however, be allowed to suggest, that an-
other Committee ought to be appointed to inquire
into the practicability of adding to the attendance
without adding to the speechifying. While a Mem-
ber is absent he cannot make a speech in the House,
that is quite clear; but in the present age of
speechifying it will be difficult to prevent Members
indemnifying themselves for additional attendance,
by an adlitional number of speeches. That the
taking the votes will add to the attendance, we
hold to be unquestionable. The next improvement,
we trust, will be to reduce the Members to one.
half of the present number as a beginning—a
plan to which we see no invincible obstacle.
The places which return two Members might
return one; and where one Member only is
returned, another piece returning one might
be added to it. It is quite clear that between
six and seven hundred orators are fat too many for
the de-patch of business. Thirty years ago there
were but few speakers. Members purchased their
seats because it was fashionable to be in the House,
and a country gentleman was returned for a county
b cause he had 20,0001. a year; and no man with-
out a large income could think of standing a contest
with him. But no man would now think of offer-
ing himself as a candidate who could not speak for
an hour without hesitation; and no man who once
attains the distinction of beteg able to speak for an
hour is ever long silent from choice. After all, Mr.
Buckingham's notion of the quarter of an hour
sand-glass was not a bad one. Hoo ever, something
must be done, and that ere long, or Constitutional
Governments will fall to a large discount. From
what fell from Mr. Warburton, we suppose the plan
is to employ cleiks to go from seat to s. at, to take
down the names. In that way, less time might. be
consumed than is now consumed in going out and
in. Lord Althorn quite agreed with the principle
of the motion. He thought that every Member
should be reepon-ible for the way in which he
voted.—Morning Chronicle.
There are many,lawyers in the House of Com-
mons, and we are now in the fourth year of a " re-
forming" Administradon, and yet the law of libel
remains a blot upon the Statute-book, and a dis-
grace to a civilised age. The state of the law as to
criminal prosecutions, in which truth itself, even
when disclosed not only without malice, but with
the best intentions for the information of the public,
is held to be a libel, shocks reason, and is abhorrent
to all sound notions both of justice and of public
policy. In civil cases, indeed, the truth is admitted
to be a justification, and, if fully and technically
proved, it goes to the root of an action for damages
—but in the civil, as well as the criminal briatich of
t e law of libel, there is much to amend and reform
before it can satisfy the notion of enlightened jes-
tice, or be truly describe) as the perfection of rea-on.
The case of aces v. Onwhyn," is oee of the
mot recent practical illustrations of the unjust work-
ing of the libel law in civil cases. Here we fled the
plaintiff, an attorney, bringing an action for alleged
injury to his character, against a newsvender, in
whose shop a newspaper containing a libel was
sold. Whether the dealer in newspapers is
aware that the Journal which he sells contains
a libel makes no difference in point of law.
A ready fiction of pleading which, being a fiction,
requires no proof, intakes him as amenable to the
law, either in pet,on or purse, or in both, as if he
were the author or a knowing publisher, clearly ac-
tuated by malice to the ruin of another man's cha-
racter. Nor is this all—if the July, on the whole
view of the merits of the case, and, on being told
by the Court that the defendant is legally liable in
dantges for the copy of the publication which was
sold in his shop, whether he knew its contents or
not—if, we say, the Jury, tenter all the circion-
wainces, should estimate the character of the plain•
tiff at one farthing, that lowest estimation of cite-
meter, below which the current coin of this realm,
at least, can measure nothing lower, infl cts on the
defendant the psyment of coats, which seldom are
less than 100/. and often more. It is true that the
Judge who tries the case may, if he pleases, certify
and deprive the plaintiff of his costs; but Judges,
in general, do not like to exercise this power, espe-
cially where to punish or silence the Press, is the
object of the action. Of the merits of the case of
" D cas v. Onwhyri" we say nothing except as an il-
lustration of our argument against the justice of making
the casual vender liable, whether he is aware the pa-
per which he sells contains a libel or not. It has been
truly said that if newsvenders are not to sell news-
papers until they have perused the whole of their 1
contents, there must be an end of their business al-
together, and thus a most industrious and, in nume-
rous instances, a highly respectable class of trades-
men, who furnish the public with an article which,
in the present state of society, has almost become a
necessary of life, must be annihilated. Nor would
his perusal of the contents of every Journal which
he sells always save the newsvender from unpleasant
consequences. The eye of a sharp practitioner of
the law will detect a libel where the common ob-
server can perceive nothing that, to his apprehen-
sion, may not be perfectly innocent. Latet anguis
in herbs. He must, therefore, employ Couneet to
give his opinions upon every Journal which he
sells, as to whether a libel may not lurk in some
part of it ; for if the sting of that libel should
millet damage only to the amount of one farthing
upon the most worthless character that ever fled
from public scorn to the refuge of a Court of
Law, be will be mulcte I in a sum fur costs
which will take away the profits of long months
of laborious anti honest industry. In the case
to which we have alluded, the Solicitor-Ge-
ncral, as Counsel for the defendant, having eli-
cited from the son of the plaintiff that he heard his
father say he had brought 84 actions against news-
venders for the same libel, which was then before
the Court, put it to the Jury very properly, that if
he actually proceeded in those 84 actions, and in
every case the Jury estimated the plaintiff's loss of
character at the amount of one farthing, the whole
of the damages in all those actions would amount
to but Is. 9J., but the costs which he, as an attore
ney, killing his own mutton, would be entitled to
put in his own pocket, at the average of 1001. each
action, would amount to the sum of 8,4001. Is not
this a monstrous state of things ? We have, as we
said before, several lawyers in Parliament, most of
them reformers, and yet the law of libel remains in
this disgraceful state. The direct encouragement to
trumpery and vexatious actions of libel, which this
state of the law gives, we need hardly mention.
Among the number of attorneys admitted every
year all cannot earn their bread respectably—some
will have recourse to sharp low practice end disre-
putable ways of applying whatever little legal
knowledge they may have to the harassing and
fleecing the King's subjects, and bringing the name
of justice into contempt. Accordingly ra persons
Have been so apt to avail themselves of .he odious
law of libel to put money in their pockets as at-
torneys who have lost character and caste. No per-
sons view with more paint and disgust such dis-
araceful practice atid perversion of the machinery of
Courts ofJustice to speculations in plunder, than the
respectable members of the attorneys' profession ;
and we believe none would be more pleased to see