The Sun.
London, England, 1860-03-27 00:00:00

ASSIZE INTELLIGENCE.

HOME CIRCUIT.—KINGSTON, March 26.
Before Loyd Chief Justice Erie and a Common
Jury.)
PERCIVAL AND WIFE V. LEVY.

This was an action against the proprietor of
the Daily Telegraph newspaper, to recover damages
for a libel. The defendant pleaded not guilty, and
a justification.
Mr. Ribton and Mr. M'Donnell appeared for the
plaintiff; Mr. Edwin James, Q.C., and Mr. Haw-
kins, Q.C., were counsel for the defendant.

Mr. Ribton, in opening the case to the jury,
said that the plaintiff, although in humble circum-
stances, and who gained his livelihood by working
as a porter at the different wharves on the river
side, was a very respectable person, and he brought
the present action against the proprietor of the
Daily Telegraph newspaper, to recover damages
for a libel that had been published in that journal,
which had cast the most serious imputations upon
the character of himself and his wife. He then
proceeded to state that the case arose out of a
charge of rape, that was preferred by the daughter
of the plaintiff, Hannah Percival, against a man
named James Powers, in December last, under these
circumstances :—The plaintiff's daughter, it ap-
peared, was employed with several other girls and
women at a bedstead manufactory in Thames-
street, and Powers was the foreman in the esta-
blishment, and the charge that was made against
him was that he had taken advantage of his posi-
tion to commit the offence imputed to him, and
he was taken into custody upon that charge on
the ith of December, and was examined
before Mr. Alderman Abbiss at the Mansion-
house, and was remanded for two days, and upon
the second hearing, the Lord Mayor being present
and concurring in the proceeding, he was committed
to take his trial to the Central Criminal Court,
when the grand jury ignored the bill. The libel
complained of consisted of reports of the examina-
tions and comments upon the evidence in leading
articles, the material portions being that the plain-
tiff and his wife were accused of having made the
charge against Powers for the purpose of extorting
money from him, and that he would not have been
given into custody if he had agreed to a proposition
that was made to him by a woman named Dawson,
with the sanction of the plaintiffs, that he should
pay a sum of money to hush up the charge. The
articles also contained some very strong comments
upon the magistrates for having sent so serious a
charge for trial upon such weak evidence as had
been adduced in support of it. The various reports
were put in evidence, and it appeared from the
examinations before the magistrates that Powers
from the first declared his entire innocence of the
charge, and it also appeared that the girl, Hannah
Percival, made no complaint until a fortnight after
the commission of the alleged offence, and she ad-
mitted that improper intercourse had taken place
between her and Powers on three other occa-
sions after the supposed act of violence without
any complaint on her part, and she also admitted
that she had a book of a most obscene character in
her possession, and that she showed it to another
girl who was employed in the manufactory. The
woman Dawson, it appeared, also stated, when she
was examined, that Mrs. Percival sent her to
Powers, on the Saturday before he was given
into custody, and told her to ask him for some
money to settle the affair, and that he declared he
had done nothing wrong and said he would not
give a shilling, and that Mrs. Percival then said
that she would prefer the charge of rape against
him. The woman Dawson also appeared to have
proved that Powers complained, in the presence of
the girl, of the cruelty of her making such a charge
against him, and that she then said that he had not
committed the offence, but had merely attempted
to do so.

John Percival (the plaintiff) and his wife were
examined, and they proved most of the facts above
narrated connected with the charge made by their
daughter against Powers, and they both swore
positively that they never authorised Mrs. Dawson
to make any proposition to Powers to settle the
matter by the payment of money, and that their
only object in taking him before a magistrate was
to obtain redress for the injury which they believed
he had inflicted upon their daughter.
The father, in cross•examination, said that he
did not employ an attorney to conduct the prose-
cution, but a policeman had recommended him to
the gentleman who was conducting this action, and
all the money he had given him was £4, which he
paid him that morning. This witness also said
that after the grand jury had thrown out the bill,
and these articles appeared in the Daily Telegraph,
the boys used to " chaff" and
,jeer him in reference
to his daughter's case.
Mr. Edwin James then addressed the jury for the
defendant.
Mr. Justice Erle, in summing up, said that the
law undoubtedly was that a fair and correct report
of proceedings in a court of justice, if published
bona fide and without malice, could not be made
the subject of an action for libel, but with regard
to the publication of comments upon those proceed-
ings afterwards, that was another matter, upon
which he should not at present give any opinion.
With reference to this particular case, however, he
should state that it appeared to him that the de-
fendant was not justified in making the comments
he had done in the articles that appeared after the
proceedings before the magistrates, and if the jury
should think that they were of a libellous character,
the plaintiff was entitled to a verdict, with such rea-
sonable damages as they should think he was en_
• titled to under all the circumstances.
The jury, after a short deliberation, returned a
verdict for the plaintiff, damages ioo.
Mr. James tendered a bill of exceptions to his
lordship's ruling in point of law, upon the ground
that he should have left it to the jury, that if they
believed the statements Were made bona fide and
without malice, and. were founded upon the facts,
the defendant was entitled to a verdict; and upon
the application of the learned counsel, execution
was stayed, until the question raised by the bill of
exceptions has been more fully argued.