The Sun.
London, England, 1866-03-03 00:00:00

MR. SOTHERN AND SPIRITUALISM.

Central Criminal Court.--This Day.
(Before the Deputy Recorder.)
This morning Mr. Benjamin Coleman appeared
in surrender of his:recognisances answer to an indict-
ment charging him with having written and circu-
lated a libel on Mr. Sothern, the celebrated comedian
of the Haymarket Theatre, in the Spiritual Maga-
zine. The libel, it will be recollected, made grave
imputations against Mr. Sothern's private character
as a gentleman and a married man, all of which he
said were utterly and entirely untrue. A full re-
port of the examination of the defendant appeared
in The Sun on the occasion of the inquiry at the
Mansion-House before the Lord Mayor, and there-
fore it is unnecessary to republish it on the present

occasion.
Mr. Sergeant Ballantine and Mr. Montague
Williams appeared for Mr. Sothern, and Mr. M.
Chambers, Q.C., and Mr. Lewis were for the de-
fendant.

The jury having been sworn,
Mr. M. Chambers, on the part of the defendant,
said he wished to plead guilty to the indictment,
and to make the most ample apology in his power
to Mr. Sothern for the pain the publication of it
had caused him. He, on the part of Mr. Coleman,
said he had no desire to extenuate one word of it.
The libel, it would be recollected, was contained
in an article in the February number of the
Spiritual Magazine, the subject of which was
the truth or falsehood of spiritualism, and Mr.
Sothern's opinion of it. The article in question was
in the first instance extracted from a New York
newspaper, but Mr. Coleman had introduced into
the article a letter written from America, and had
alsa commented upon a letter which Mr. Sothern
had addressed to a Glasgow newspaper with respect
to the matter in question. He entirely exonerated
that gentleman from the charges made against him
in the letter from New York, and he begged to
assure the Court that the defendant had no
hand in either concocting or sending that
letter from America. If the trial had been
put off for a short time he should have been
able to prove to the satisfaction of the Court that
such was the case, but as that course could not be
adopted the Court would have to look at the libel
and all the circumstances under which it was pub-
lished. Mr. Sothern and Mr. Addison had exhi-
bited at Scarborough certain performances to
show—

Sergeant Ballantine said he should object to any
further statements in the matter. Whatever Mr.
Sothern had exhibited was no reason for imputing
to him a crime of the most unjustifiable description.
There was no truth whatever in the assertion that
Mr. Sothern had ever exhibited, as his learned
friend was about to state. He had done no more
than any private gentleman was entitled to do in
his own house—viz., to illustrate his belief in the
entire absurdity of spiritual manifestations. He
should object to the introduction of such matter to
justify the libel complained of.
Mr. Chambers said he knew nothing of the doc-
trines of spiritualism, but as far as Mr. Coleman
was concerned he knew that he was under the im-
pression that the phenomenon was attributable to
other than ordinary causes. Whether his faith was
well or ill founded he was not going to say, but Mr.
Sothern wrote to one of the Glasgow papers stating
that he had discovered the deception practised by
the Devonport Brothers, and that communication
begat observations in the Spiritual Magazine,
which ended in the long article complained of. Mr.
Coleman inadvertently, as he (Mr. Coleman)
thought, wrote a letter stating that he was prepared
to prove all that was published. In preparing the
article for publication Mr. Coleman had,
unfortunately for himself, been labouring under the
impression that by omitting certain portions of the
letter from America, and substituting in its place a
number of asterisks, he had removed all ground of
libel—that it had removed the sting from the asser-
tions ; but that was not the case. In the letter that
Mr. Coleman had written he had unfortunately not
really expressed what he intended to say ; he did
not mean to say that he should be able to justify all
that had been published on the matter, but all that
he, being a believer, had written, and this fact only '
tended to make—
The Deputy-Recorder asked if Mr. Sothern's
letter in the Glasgow newspaper made any personal
imputations against those who practised spiritualism.
Mr. Sergeant Ballantine said there was no impu-
tation against Mr. Coleman, and the letter of Mr.
Sothern was only an answer to the attacks that had
been made on him in the Spiritual Magazine.
Mr. Chambers—Mr. Sothern in his letter said he
could only look at spiritualists as idiots and .swind-
lers, and also that the practice of spiritualism was a
fraud, an impudent chicanery, and a blasphemous
indecency. The court would here see the contro-
versy had got hot and strong—(laughter)—but he
would not pursue that matter further. The impu-
tations on Mr. Sothern's character he now, in the
fullest manner, withdrew. Mr. Coleman had no
hand in the publication of the advertisement that
had given Mr. Sothern so much uneasiness, and all
that his client intended to say when he wrote the
letter about justification was that he should be
prepared to justify all he (defendant) had written,
not all that had been published. Under those
circumstances, it was for the court to say whether
there should be a high or low sentence. There
were believers in the truth of spiritualism, and Mr.
Coleman was one of them, and it was only follow-
ing out that belief that Mr. Coleman had written
what he had. If there were any other way than he
had adopted of setting Mr. Sothern right with the
public, he, on the part of Mr. Coleman, would be
only too happy to adopt it.
Sergeant Ballantine said he was perfectly sensible
of the weight that ought to be attached to the
apology coming from a gentleman of the high
standing of his learned friend (Mr. Chambers) at
the bar. When he withdrew every imputation
against Mr. Sothern, and said there was not one
word of truth in it, he had done all that a gentle-
man could do. He should not, therefore, say one
word in aggravation. The whole statement, how-
ever, which was a wicked and wanton falsehood,
had given Mrs. Sothern much pain, and that lady
was in court, ready to say that she was a happy
wife, having a good husband. It did not become
him to be hard on a fallen adversary, and Mr.
Sothern, as a kind-hearted and honourable gentle-
man, would not press hardly upon an erring fellow-
creature.
The Deputy Recorder, in passing sentence,
said that the defendant on his own con-
fession, had been convicted of a misdemeanor.
The libel was a very gross one, and was cal-
culated to inflict great pain upon a gentleman
placed as Mr. Sothern, who was a married man and
a public personage. There was no doubt that the
defendant published the libel, and the prosecutor
was entirely justified in taking the most active steps
the law allowed him to vindicate his character from
the aspersions cast upon it, because more than his
own happiness was concerned in the matter. The
defendant had overstepped the bounds of fair con-
troversy in what he had published, but Mr. Sothern
had kept within the limits of law in proving that,
which the defendant firmly believed, to be false.
He (the Deputy Recorder) did not say that spirij
tualism was true or false— he rather believed it
was true, but he had not seen any of it.
(Laughter.) The defendant, in his part of the
controversy, had introduced a direct personal
slander ; therefore he had placed himself within
the reach of the law—he had, as had been said
by a very high authority, thrown away the arms
of a warrior and taken up those of an assassin.
It therefore became his duty to consider what punish-
ment, for such a proceeding, should be awarded.
Ho had done so. He did not think it was likely
that Mr. Sothern would ever more hear of the
matter from thedefendant, and therefore he thought
the retention of his recognisances was not required,
and he should inflict a penalty of £5O upon the
defendant for the use of her Majesty the Queen,
and order that he be imprisoned until the fine was
paid.

The court throughout the time the case was
under discussion was filled with members of the
theatrical profession. Mr. Sothern, who occupied