The Sun.
London, England, 1833-11-25 00:00:00

famous avocation, and leave the plaintiff to the
luxury of an undefended cause. An action thus
fails to reach the pockets of the libeller, and he
takes special care to keep out of the way of an
execution against his person. Besides, we deny
that any law can afford a complete redress. No
punishment of an offender by mulct or the
tread-mill can perfectly heal the wound of an
honourable mind basely calumniated. The very
question of a man's integrity or character is an
inexpiable offence, and when females are involved
in a public discussion every feeling mind knows
the irreparable nature of the injury perpetrated.
The execution of a murderer is no satisfaction
to his victim. If an indictment is preferred,
the slanderer represents himself as a persecuted
man, because the law will not always allow
justification ; and when indictments are shaped
to place in proof the truth or falsehood of the
charges (as in fact is always done in cases where
the parties libelled seek honourably to disprove
calumny and expose aspersions of character), the
convicted libeller still cunningly represents him-
self as " sacrificed by the law of libel." The
slandered therefore, not the libellers, are in truth
the more frequent and injured victims of the
present law, though justice towards both requires
that the principle and procedure of our juris-
prudence should be revised and altered. We
trust that this subject will be referred to the
consideration of a competent Committee of the
House of Commons next Session, and that no
patch-work project will be propounded by
individual Members of Parliament. It is a
nteional quest ion, and it is high time thelaws affect-
ing the liberty of the press and the protection of
private reputation should be clearly defined
and amended. The liberty of the press
cannot comprehend the liberty of lying and
slandering public or private men ; and we deeply
lament, as a disgrace to the country, the shame-
less practice, which has prevailed for several
years of calumniating and wilfully misrepresent-
ing character and personal conduct. This vile
practice was especially adopted in 1821, to
" write down" the late Queen, the Lord Chan-
cellor, and the public men who honourably
supported her under misfortune. Lord Lowther,
Mr. George Dawson, Mr. Croker, his friend
Mr. Theodore Hook, Mr. William Holmes,
and recently a certain clique of small poets and
amateur political scribblers, could throw much

light on the subject of the origin of this abuse
of the " freedom " of the press. We assert,
without fear of contradiction, that this odious

and malignant system of personal vituperation
has been almost exclusively confined to a

part of the Tory press. In the country it has
recently made a rapid progress. In Liverpool,
Leeds, Northampton, Bristol, and other towns, we
perpetually notice the most disgusting periodical
libels against local public men ; the principal liberal
country papers are free from this leprous taint.
In the last month ,Ne have had to record in-

stances of personal chastisement inflicted on the
vulgar offenders. Under such provocation, and
!he state of the law, we confess we do not
wonder that the abused " take the law into
their own hands ;" and we foresee that if the
Tory Press continues to indulge itself in these
aggressions against public and private indivi-
duals, the well-known persons behind the scenes
will have to risk their own lives or the lives of
those whom they thus systematically calumniate.
The Durham Chronicle of Friday notices the
recent fracas in Newcastle and the disgusting
nature of the north-country libels which led to
tn e y putilsitnicin or Llie epuLcd 10,01,"
We recommend the Standard to copy it, that
its readers may know both sides of the question :

" We nave already, in former numbers of our journal

adverted to the dastirdly and in'amous handbills published
in the town of Sunderland—assignable to electioneering
causes, and cirried to an excess the most atrocious and dis-
!.raceful that can he conceived. We last week `stated that
a publiewion of this
.genus had led to a breach of the
oeace' in Newcastle—where the proprietor of the a lying
Journal' had received a well-merited personal castigation

for the share he had in the dissemination of one of the
most cowardly and malignant libels that ver proceeded
from the press of this country—even from the Tory press,
in these its latter days of expiring hope and maddening
despair. Our readers at a distance may wonder what
could possibly be contained within the four corners of a
sheet of paper, to move a party of respectable and sober-
minded men to the extremity of inflicting corporeal

chastisement upon the unhappy and degraded wretch who
so largely received the proofs of their aroused anger and
indignant condemnation. We were, last week, ignorant
f the contents of the public,tian in question ; and could
not, ther.fore, state them. We are now constrained to
abstain from relating them minu•ely for another reason.
They are, in their native shape, too gross and infamous
for repetition; and it must suffice to inform the public,

that the diabolical authors of the bill, exceeding that
course of witticism and observation which is allowable in
relation to matters of a political nature, plunged into the
very lowest depths of scandal and defamation—launching
forth against the fair fame of a lady of spotlesss character
the deadliest insinuations of licentiousness and profligacy,
and against men of unchallengeable integrity and
unsullied honour, imputations of peculation and fraud,
which, if true, would drive the objects of the ca-
lumnies from out of the pale of society. These,

then, were the grounds upon which tLe gentlemen referred
to in the paragraph with which we wet, f.voored by a cor.

. .
reTnndent las' week, acted in bestowing upon the body
of the mi,erable instrotnent of the slanderous conclave
who are understood to be the leaders in the villanous and
horrible system of moral assassination which has lately

polluted §underland, the just punishment which his vile
pandering to the depraved appetites of his guilty employ-

ers so richly deserved. In the language of our corres-
pondent, every virtuous mind will applaud the deed ; and
if there he any subject or circumstance of regret connected
with the transaction, it must he, that for such a base,
cozening bound of iniquity, there is not ' in every honest
hand a whip, to lash him naked through the world.' At
this moment, we purposely and advisedly abstain from

entering further into the question of these odious and un.

mentionable calumnies—their author., abettors, and ob
But we do so only for a season, and that a brie
one. The infernal nest must be bunted out and de.

strayed ; end assuredly no exertions of ours shall be
wanting to expose, in their proper colours, these unprin-

cipled tramplers on the sanctity of private life—these
despoilers of female reputlt:on—these grovelling and en-

venomed reptiles, who sting in secret, and gloat in dark
ness over the sufferings of their victims !"

If anything can be worse than the original
libels it is the fraudulent and base repetition of
them through the medium of an affected refuta-
tion. Exposures and contradictions of calumnies
are opportunities of artfully repeating the injury.
The primary libel is skilfully re-published in a
pretended explanation of its falsehood. If the
calumny is of country manufacture every provin-
cial article refuting the slander is studiously ex-
cluded from the columns of the London paper,
and all adverse comtncntaries are seized with

avidity. The various arts of libelling or circu-
lating false rumours, are, however, too notorious
to require any further description ; but we willgive an example. About a fortnight since cer-
tain Journals brought Lord Durham to London,
and connected his pretended visit with meditated
changes in the Cabinet. A few days afterwards
the Morning Post puts out a poetical and
innoxious squib (we suppose by Mr. Praed, the
political Horace of his party, and who made an
unlucky election), headed " Lord Durham is
come to town." It is manifest that the " ru-
mour" was the pilot balloon of the Poet's ascent
from Parnasus. The matter is in itself insig-
nificant, but it illustrates the " art of lying."
We have reluctantly used names in our remarks,