The Sun.
London, England, 1826-12-08 00:00:00

Journal have been put into the Dublin Post-office
tuithout any address; and .the London Post-office
had no less than six numbers of one Morning Paper
put in this week withont any superscription ! If such
irregularities occur out of doors, it is manifestly unjust
to attribute the neglect to the Post-office. We would
recommend those who may feel aggrieved in similar
cases, always to apply to the Secretaries of the General
Post-offices, and we can assure them, from grateful ex-
perience, of prompt attention to their respective cases.

It is at all times so painful to us to make any com-
ment on the proceedings of those venerable persons
the Judges of the land, that we have hitherto abstained
from any observations on the doctrines they have
respectively laid down on the numerous actions for
libel, which have been recently brought against the
Press of this 'country ; and feeling as we do every pos-
sible respect for the profound judgment, as well as
public station of those learned persons, we wish not
to be understood, in the observations which we are
about to offer, as intending to set down " aught in
malice," but to make our remarks in that spirit of
candid criticism, with which, in this happy land, we
may be allowed to examine the proceedings of those
who fill even the most exalted and venerated stations.
The Learned LORD CHIEF BARON, we are sure,
will not object to his law• and his judgment, as exhi-
bited in the Tate, trial against the Times, being can-
• .vassed in this spirit, but, at the same time, with that
-freedom which 'ought to distinguish the independent
Press of our country. The facts of the case must
be so fresh in the recollection of our readers, that we
need only briefly advert to them.
An article appeared in the Birmingham and Sala-
plan Journals, which has been admitted to be a libel
against a Mr. Salmi, with reference to the conduct
of which he was accused towards his brother, an
idiot. Proceedings were
.instituted against the Papers
first printing these libels, and verdicts to the amount
of 500/. damages were given against them. Previously
to these actions being brought, the London News-
papers had copied the article in question into their
columns ; and notwithstanding that reparation had
been-so amply made to the character of the individual,
both by the amount of damages awarded to him from
the Proprietors of the Papers originally sinning, and
by the subsequent publication in all the papers of the
kingdom of the evidence proving the falsehood of the
accusation, yet after this lapse of time he now attacks
the Times, as the most influential of the' London
Journals, for further compensation for the injury dune
to him ; and, loi'aught we know, after the doctrine
laid down by the CHIEF BARON, he may institute
similar actions against . every one of the numerous
publications into which the libel was copied.
Indefinable as the Law of Libel is already acknow-
ledged to be, the doctrine of 'the LORD CHIEF
'BARON that every Paper which gave circulation to
this libel might be proceeded against, has rendered it
so enormously wide in its range, that if the principle
asserted should be carried into practice, 'time News-
papers, those vehicles of useful knowledge, must be at
once put down. Can a Daily 'Paper be maintained
without copying from other publications, local intelli-
gence ? and can the correctness of that intelligence be
ascertained before re-publication ? Is it not the fair
and legitimate object of every Newspaper to commu-
nicate interesting news of every kind ? and is not the
cause of virtue and morality promoted by the exposure
and publicity which the Daily Press affords of vicious
conduct ? ' If k' Paper finds a case recorded in another
Piper, which does not bear on it a prima facie proof
of fabrication, surely the Editor is not deserving of the
same punishment for copying it into his columns,
without any malicious intentions against the individual
to whom it relates, as the Editor of that journal, who
inserts it originally, without due inquiry into the facts,
or with a malignant and base intention ? " But," says
the Learned Judge, " the licentiousness of the Press
must be curbed and restrained ; and, as the circulation
of the Times is wider than that of any other Paper,
the greater injury is done to the individual by the in-
sertion, and therefore the Jury ought to mark their re-
probation of the libel by the amount of damages."---
' According to this rule, we should apprehend that if
500/. were a fair quantum of damages done to Mr.
Sairril by the Country Journals, the injury be sus-
tained by the Times, inasmuch as the sale of the latter
is about fifteen times as large as that of the former, ought
to have received a compensation of about 7,5001. The
folly of such doctrine, as contrary to what we have
ever heard of law, as it is, to common sense, is mani-
fest ; and in this case the Jury showed their sense,
ten of them, at least, by wishing to give the smallest
possible damages of id.
If this is law, we contend the law ought to be alter-
ed. The foundation of all law should be common
sense ; and as the animus of a libel is the point first
to be considered, and its malicious or careless publi-
cation the next, we think that the party writing it,
and the one first propagating it, are those which
ought to be held answerable for the consequences of
it. When once published, a libel may get into every
publication in Europe, and a Jury, in awarding da-
mages against the writer or first publisher of a libel,
should take that consideration into account :—but to
class the innocent copier of an article, containing false
statements, with the guilt fabricator, is to confound
principles, sin! to render insecure and dangerous the
• ' conducting of any J ournal however careful and well in;
tentioned may be its editobr,
In the immediate case
under consideration, we hav
edoubt
wino damages, o awarded 500/. that the Juries,
took into their consi-
deration the possible wide circulation of the libel, not
in the columns of the country papers only, but as likely
to be front them transferred to every
other in the
kingdom.
'The LORD CHIEF BAnoN,in his zeal to suppress
licentiousness in the press, has therefore, we think,
over-stepped the principles of the law of libel, and we
trust that a revision of the decision before a highere
tribunal, will prove that his Lordship's law and juk
• ment were as wrong as in their tendency they appear
to us to be injurious to the interests of Society, inas-
much as they are destructive of the liberty of the
Press of this Country.

By recent accounts from Batavia of the 15th August, it is said
that the rebels bad unexpectedly obtained some advantages over
the Dutch troops, which threatened their safety, unless the career
of the enemy had been checked by the arrival of fresh troops.
• It is with much regret that we announce the death of Captain
Brown) CatTxx,•of the Royal Navy, Resident Commissioner
at. the Victualling Board at the port of Plymouth. This highly
revel:table officer, died at an advanced age, on Monday evening
lan) at his residence, in the Royal Naval Hospital at Plymouth,
of which establishment he had been the Governor for upwards of
41 years. In his public, and private character, he was upright,
honorable, and amiable—respected and beloved by all who knew
hint; and neither the public service, nor private society could have
lost a more valuable or more esteemed member. We understand
that Commissioner Creyks, is to be succeeded by Captain Sir
JaMas Alexander Gordon, K. C. B.