The Sun.
London, England, 1826-12-06 00:00:00

tPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

'We recommend to attention the opinion of Lord Chief
Justice Best, as pronounced in the cause of" Stockley v.
Clement," reported in this day's,jountal, on the subject of
libel. His Lordship says, according to
.one account," that
if no circumstances are laid before the jury from which
they can infer malice, the action is not maintainable."—
According to another cc An action•for libel, unless ma-
, lice could be proved, is not maintainable." It is clear,
therefore, that malice is not to be inferred from the word-
ing or expression of that which is adduced as a libel. In-
deed, the character of no act whatever is established or
proved from the act itself, or its evasequences. A man re-
ceives a ;Aortal wound from the stroke of a hatchet: this
is moder,.according to the doctrine of some Judges. The
Malice. is inferred from the blow, and its fatal consequences.
No, we argue, and so it should appear argues Lord Chief
Justice Best; prove, or.prove in part, or show by proba-
bilities, that the intention to destroy, or some motive to de-
: troy, existed previously, or at the mement When the
- wound was inflicted, sind then the person by whom it was
inflicted may be a murderer ; but the simple act of tak-
ing away the life of another does not constitute that
most heinous of all crimes: neither does the mere act
of writing and publishing that a man has committed
this or that crime that he has been sentenced to the gal-
lies for example, that he ought not to he admitted into this
kingdom, constitute a calumnious or defamatory libel--;
(libellus, a little book). On the contrary, a man who
soda forth a publication to this effect, may have perform-
cl very praiseworthy act ; and a jury that leaves a de-
fendant who has dene this to the mercy of judges, upon a
mere quibble of law, does not do its ditty in a manner be-
eoming.E»glishmen, With regard to the stupid verbiage
set up in the place o? Argument, the truth is injurious, be-
ts:Mge it may lead to it breach of the peace, this is absolutely
cotttradietei.l by feet and common sense ; it being noto-
liens that Almost the only way to keep a scoundrel quiet,
end to .prevent hint front doing mischief, is to publish the
truth of him, to make hint known. And if it be said that
by to doing you expose him to danger, why, we ask in
reply, are all the precautions of policy to be directed to-
wards keeping him in safety against other people, and
none towards keeping others in safety against him' If
the publication be false, the case is differents--the than
slandered has his remedy.--Times.
Much stress, we observe, has been laid in some quarters
tut the expressions and overt-acts of the French and Spa-
nish Sovereigns, in relation to the hostilities carried on by
the rebellious troops of Portugal against the Goiernment
of the Princess Regent. The King of Spain, it is said,
issued orders to the Seanish Authorities near the frontier,
that the rebels from Portugal shOuld not be succoured nor
proteeted, but disartntd, removed from the frontier, and
totally dispersed. It is further stated, that his Cathnlic
Majesty penned with his own hand very positive injunc-
tions of neutrality to his officers along the 'whole line of
provinces:by which the territory of Portugal is enveloped.
We are likewise told that, on the part of his Majesty
Charles X. of France, his Ambassador has been recalled
from Madrid ; and, moreover, that a menace has been held
out to the, Spanish Cabinet, importing the recall of the
French troops from the Peninsula, if any assistance should
he given to POrtuguese rebels, or any movement directed
Uanist the Portuguese frontierly the Government of his
atholie Majesty. And these several acts of the Kings Fer-
dinand and denies are represented to the world as satisfac-
tory securities far their bona fide intentions of peace and
. forbearance towards Portugal.—Now we beg permission
to avow that such " securities" are in our judgment no
. more than mute paper, and absolute humbug. When the
. Preach Cabinet in 1823, declared that its assemblage of
troops upon the Pyrenees was actually but a cordon said-
raire, and when Louis XVIII. indignantly reprimanded as
sane), libellers of his royal honour mid policy all those who
accused him of a design to invade the Spanish nation, thr
same King openly converting, a few menthe afterwards, the
same cordon eandoire into an army of observation, and
than into an invading army ;--when we recollect such re.
cent illustrations of the utter dishoneky and perfidy of the
language on which such confident and fats, reliance was
placed,. as well'hy Spain as by Great Biitain, it is not too

touch icor ua to confess that mortis from the Court of his
Meat' Christian Majesty would go in any future case for
then nothing. When, again, Ferdinand swore a greater
number Of oaths to the Cortes in a tWelvemouth than an
Old Iteiley witness does in seven years, and then the ma-
Mein. it suited his convenience, swore that all his
former, oaths were no better than it mass of perjuries ;
why, who but-ft downright idiot would believe•a syllable
that was spoken or written by such 'a creature on 'ally sub-
ject where he had any int .Erest iii uttering: falsehood ? But
we are flared the necesaity of arguing against the honour
of this Bourbon dynasty from any former premises. In
spite of the injunctions of neutrality penned by
band, and of the positive orders issued.. against comae:,
miring rebels, or, assisting hostile movements against Pors
NO, tho fact gives the lie to the declaration. So far
from tbeyebellions Portuguese being disarmed, removed
from the • frontier, end dispersed, the whole world now
knows that they were suffered to retain their arms—that
- they were kept in positions contiguous to the .frontier—
and finally, that they were organized, and marched against
Portugal in regular columns, and from several points, with
the full concurrence of the " neutral" Spanish authmitica.
url the part of Spain, therefore, is an act of tined,
and open ; a manifest attack upon the ally of
Fsngland, -whose interests we are pledged by the faith
of,,treaties, and by the acknowledgment of the Minister
himself, to protect ; a pledge whieh this Government
can never evade by pretending to listen to impudent pro-
testations of neutrality. So again with regard to France.
• She has recalled her Ambassador. .What is that to us
Has she recalled her troops? or a man of them ? No ;
she is in military possession of Spain ; her capital ; her
ports; her gairkon,4, She has rendered all the , Spanish
troops disposable for an attack upon the frontier of For•
takel near which they are consequently assembled in seves
.ral corps of observation, to support and reinforce the in
riding columns of rebels. A simple al ternativeconstituw;
,the hinge on which this whole question as between the
Courts of-St. James's and the Tuileries may be said to
torm ' Canning need only say to M. Villele, you
either can prevent. the invasion of Portugal or you cannot.
.If you can, why don't you ? If you cannot, England must.
Madrid he garrisoned by a French force, wl sett leaves
the Spanish troops ilisposeable, there is no reason which
France, at least, cast urge which should prevent • England
from releasing the troops of Portugal by sending a "division
of 3,609 or- 4,0g0. British troops to form the garrison of

- The gist of the libel, in the case of the King against
'Hunt, would seem to be the comparing of M. Bochsa to
'the Devil, and the suppoiition that he had been introdu-
ced into the Royal Academy of Music., in the ammo.,
of the Devil, to find the chaPlain ,of the Academy in
work, and to show the boys and girls of the Institution,
a by his example, that the patronage of the great has
no-
thingto de. with honesty or decency." Tn fibfi„v4..
tion of Mr. BreugharrObat the prosecutor Would not apply
fora criminal infOrmation, because he must deny, c,ia „mh,
the charges contained in the publication of which he coin-
olained the Lord Chief Justice, in his charge to
,the
r
Jury, made .innwer that., " though that is generally true,
when you look at
.this publication, which I really am of
opinion is a libel, I don't know what he could deny, ex-
cept that he is not the Devil." The Lord Chief Justice,
like many. other ingenious men, proves a little too much
here. If the only thing which could be denied by M.
Bochsa is, that he is not the Devil, then the only thing of
importance afilinied of him is, that he is the Devil. Then,
if it is Hot nees!iary for lion to deny that be is the Devil,
this mot be, that ne rine could possibly believe that be is
the Devil ; and, therefore, the terming hint the Devil is of
the came importance :nearly. es :the terming him Preeer.
John. But the truth is, that the observation of the Lord
Chief JuStice is a piece of special pleading. The force of
the _libel is the charging him with being a spirit, while he.
really iti4 Very substantial piece of living flesh, but the chur.

ging him with the qualities uniformly attributed to the
Devilby all good Christians. Some of the attributes are even
specified by the defendant, when he speaks of Beelzebub,
shewing, by his example, that the patronage of the great
has nothing to do with honesty or decency. What the
prosecutor had to deny, therefore, was not that he was
the Devil, but that he did not possess all or any of the
legitimate attributes of the Devil. The comparing a man
to Bill Soames would be no more a libel than the com-

wing him to Rusty-fusty, were it not pretty generally
down that Bill Soames was sent on his travels to a coun-

try, much frequented by gentlemen of the profession of the
law, for something else than the building of Churches.
The laW, indeed, says, that a man's feeling must not be
hurt; and it is diflieult to say exactly what may hurt a
man's feelings. We remember, in a very clever Comedy,
one of the characters has a vet), narrow escape from it
Spanish Grandee, whose wisdom he meant to compli-
ment, by comparing him to Solomon. Unfortunately the
Spaniards are not Bible readers, and the Grandee flew out
into a passion at the indignity of sitt old Christian being
compared to a Jew. Still, it is presumed, in such a case,

.
the terming a man a Solomon, would hardly be allowed
by a Jury to be an injury, eleept it happened that he had
had several wives at one time, when, of course, he would

be entitled to find fault with the comparison. The
sophistry of the Lord Chief Justice reminds us of an anec-
dote in " Fox's Book of Martyrs," respecting a Doctor
Buckingham, Prior of the Black Friars, in Cambridge, and
the celebrated Latimer. The Friar objected to the read--
ing the Bible, least the ignorant people should be led
astray by literal acceptation. " Every: speech," said.
Latimer, " bath its metaphors and like figura-
tive significations, so common and vulgar to all
men, that the very painters do paint them on •
walls and houses. As for example (sayeth he, looking
towards the Friar that sat over against him), when they
paint a Fox preaching out of a Friar's Cowl, none is so
mad to take this to be a Fox that preacheth; but knoW
well enough the meaning of the matter, which is to paint
out unto us what hypocrisy, craft, and subtle dissimula-
tion lieth hid many times in these Friar's Cowls, wilting
ti thereby to beware. of them." When a Friar was com•
pared to a Fox, the libel 'was in Comparing him to a beast,
the attributes of which are " hypocrisy, craft, and subtle
-dissimulation." The compa ring him to a Lamb, we sup-
pose, would have been complimentary, just as the com-
paring him to a Goat might have injured him in his pro-
fession, by making husbands averse to have their wives
confessed by him. The comparing, then, M. Bochsa to
the Devil; was neither injurious to him because the corn-
parison suggested certain known qualities of the Devil, or
it was not injurious because it suggested nothing tangible.
In the former ease, the-possession of the known qualities
could haVe been denied ; and if the poisession of the
qualities could not be; denied because unknown, there could
be no injury, and consequently no libel. So much for the
• Venerable Chief Justice, the Devil, and M. Bochsa. The
New Times and the Courier, we perceive, have become
alarmed ut the verdicts in these cases; and the Courier
puts a very strong case- in illustration of his opposition
to the principle involved in the convictions in the Court of
King's Bench.
" Let us imagine," he says, " for a moment, that the principal
actors, in what the French pleasantly call, 'the affair of Fualdcs,'
had escaped justice, and by the inscrutable decrees of Providence,
which sometimes permits wretches to escape the gallows, or the
guillotine of their own country,that:theymay, infest this—let us

Aumiolie that those miscreants, after coolly butchering their victim,
and bringing a hog to lap pp the warm bloood of the dying man,
had come over to England to snperintend'an Institution established
for the advancement of public morals ; and that some paper had
mentioned the atrocities of which they 'were convicted, would

any Englishman have thought it wrong to prevent crime and in.
fainy from being raised to the level of integrity and honour ?"
We have not the slightest doubt, that if our contempo-
rary hail slandered one of the principal actors in the "affair
of Fualdes," by hinting in his Journal that he wits not fit
for the superintendence of an institution for the advance-
m'ent of public morals, or for the enjoyment of the edifying
society of the Venerable Archbishop of York, on a prow
onion for indictment, the Lord .Chief Justice of the Court
of King's Bench, whose impartiality is beyond suspicion,
would have given the very same charge to the Jury which
he gave in the ease of Hunt. Nay, if, by a flaw in the in-
dictment, the man who ate five of his companions at Vim
Dieman's Land had had the good fortune of a man who
lately escaped on account of a flaw, in an indictment in
New South 'Wales, having wantonly cleft a poor man's
skull with an axe (it not having been stated in the
indictment whether the skull was cleft by the edge
Or the back of the axe), and if this cannibal, after serving
his time, were to have returned to his Father-land, and our
Contemporary had chosen to remind his neighbours of hit,
former propensities, the Lord Chief Justice would haVe
told the Jury that he had committed a libel, and charged
them to find him guilty. What this Jury would have
done it is impossible to say. A Juryman, who can make
light of a twenty-four hours' fast, and who feels disposed
to tun his stomach against the stomachs of the other eleven,
can, as was lately instanced in a noted conviction, bring
them round to his opinion. The thoughts of the hot
joint smoking in vain at home is a dangerous temptation
to a London Juryman. There can be no question, how-
ever, that the Jury would, on no conciivable ground, be
any more entitled to acquit the courier, in the two sup,
posed cases, than they were entitled to acquit Mr. Hunt,
or the Printer of the Sunday liforaitor. The principle-of
the law is.atrocious, and there is the evil. At present
Judges charge according to law, and Juries find verdicts
according as they feel. As the principle of the law cannot
be carried consistently into execution it is so detestably
bid, it is a mere toss up whether the Jury will convict or
acquit. Much will depend on the state of the public mind
at the tune of the trial. Now, we think we can account
for the marked determination of Juries, at this particular
time, to convict. In this country, in which criminal pro-
cedure may be said to be yet in its infancy, our Police
Courts entertain cases of all sorts,--persons accused of
murder and burglary, to the evidence against whom, from
the very commencement, too much publicity cannot be
given, having, 'after a serious examination of themselves
and witnesses, been committed for trial, they are toid-
eeeded by some tradesman, or youth of family, who see-
ing. a watchman act, as he thinks, harshly to a
prisoner, chooses to interfere, and for his pains is locked
up for the night, to encounter the Police Magistrate
next day, NO%v, the only thing in common in these
cases that they are both heard in the same Court. The
former demands publicity for the sake of both the accused
and the public ; the latter demands privacy both for the
sake of the individual and the public, because publicity
often injures him, and consequently injures society by iin7
pairing his usefulness. It is observed, by a foreign
Lawyer, in treating of the difference between Police and
Criminal cases, that " Police offences are trivial injuries,
intentional or unintentional, and those actions or omis-
sions, which, in themselves, violate neither the rights of
the State, nor those of a subject, but are prohibited from
a regard for decency and good order. Criminal pro-
ceedings require, from their importance, the utmost pre-
caution, and the, observation of various forms. On the
other hand, Police transgressions are seldom of any im-
portance, and in almost all cases publicity is not de-
sirable ; and so far from being a security to the per-
son punished, it would add to his suffering." Now,
from the eitentristance of cases so very dissimilar as the In-
sfruction of a criminal proceeding, and the hearing of a
Petty Police transgression, oacurrin at the same place,
it too often has happened that the publicity essential to
other, when it
the ends of justice in the one, has been also given to the
wining has wrought great
been thus injustice. We are
to admit that the feelings of individuals have
unneeessaril tortured by exposure of
weaknesses
to
which yoi wanton
liable.
remember t'he late Mr. Perry, men are occasionally 1%
than whom a man of more
kind and gentlemanly -feeling
young men of _respe never existed, was, on one
occasion, deeply hurt, the names of some twenty or
thirty eteble families, seized by order
of some harsh Magistrate while
amusing
themselves with
private theatricals, and locked up in the watchhouse, found
accidentally their way into his newspapers. -Now Jurymen

mix in the world, and annwing occasionally under these
indiscretions orthe-PreSs, and not discriminating between
the cases were publicity requisite, and where it not,
punish not unfrequently the Press for cases where it is in-
nocent, for transgressions which they have no opportunity
of reaching. The Judges again, who are crafty, hating
publicity in all cases, take care not to enlighten Jurymen on
the limits between the cases that ought and the cases that
ought not to be punished, that they may avail themselves
of the bad feeling excited in Jurors by the one to obtain
verdicts in all. At the same time it must be all Owed, that
there are greater difficulties in this, perhaps, than in any
other country, from the barbarous state of our laws, in saying
where publicity ought to end. In every other Christian
country, we believe, the utmost punishment of a police
case, properly so called, is a fine of a few shillings, or a
week's confinement at most. But, in this country, a poor
man is fined sixpence, perhaps, and has eleven or twelve
shillings more of costs to pay for nutting, or some such
thing, and if he fail to pay, is sentenced to a heavier
punishment than that for manslaughter, namely, an im-
prisonment for many-months. The last. Salford Calendar
abounds with these abominations in the eyes of Goil and
Man. For instance, a poor man for breaking a window,
committed on the 17th August, is, on the 23d October,
fined 6d. and 9s. costs; awl failing to pay, remanded for
three calendar months. Thus a sixpenny matter is made
a half year's imprisonniait !—Talk of Austria and Prussia!
If these petty cases were not noticed, there would often
be no bounds to the tyranny which the badness of our
laws enables. our irresponsible Magistrates to commit. A
poor boy picks a piece-of horse-dung in a field; this
is not a crime, of course,. but one of the most venial of
police transgressions;' but it shall notwithstanding be
I punished more severey than a crime of the deepest dye :
and the unfeeling 'Magistrate who fines him, with the al-
ternative of a long imprisonment, knows as well as that he
will one day die, that he is not lining the wretched crea-
ture, but sentencing him to a gaol.—llloroing chronicle.

The notice which Mr. Secretary Peel gave in the House
of Commons, on Monday night, of moving fOr the appoint-
ment of a Committee tninquire into.the state of the Police
in the districts around London, has not been given too
soon. Late improvements, however, ere better than per-
petual-abuse, and we give the Right Honourable Gentle-
man credit for not allowing himself to be so enslaved by
precedent as to discourage useful innovation. We think
if the-motion was shaped so as to include a Committee of
Inquiry into the state of the nightly watch of the metro-
polis, it would not be without sufficient reason. The
alarming increase •of burglaries in' London-of late years
calls loudly for inquiry. It is impossible that the trade in
nocturnal plunder in the heart of London, as well as the ex-
tremities, could be so flourishing as it is, unless in limner-
ous instances the depredators were afforded facilities of
entrance and escape by the collusion of those who arc
paid to protect the property of the citizens. As to the
state of the Police in the outlets of London, it is quite.
a disgrace to a Civilised' country. The brutal outrages
which bands of thieves have freqtrently committed with
impunity at fairs in the vicinity of the metropolis, present
the most undeniable evidence of the inefficiency of the
police. Whether the people meet for recreation or busi-
ness, they ought to be protected, and as they are taxed
very highly to support the Government, that Government
ought to be always ready and able to afford them effective
protection against the desperete violators of personal secu-
rity and law: Nothing shows more decidedly the want of
wisdom and energy in a Government than the increase of
boldness and conteMP-tnous defiance of the laws on the
part of the ruffians that live by plunder and violence. It

was only in the last auttutni that a ga»g of thieves exer-
cised terror and pillage through the neigbourhood of
Bethnal-green, trimming and robbing all who came in their
way at their pleasure, and levying contributions, without
molestation, in every quarter. So audacious were they as
to assail people in the open day, and carry away their
spoils unopposed to the haunts or savage licentiousness.---
At present, it appears, a gang of burglars are spreading
' dismay throughoutliammeesmith,.. and in vain the police
are invoked by the alarmed inhabitants• We trust that

Ir. Peel's COmmittee will eoriduct itii(l finish its i

glary, as to prevent, by salutary regulations, a recurrence
of such scandalous enortnitieti.—Morning Herald.

The mountain is delivered; the mouse has come fort'

Poor Alderman Waithman ! what a figure did he cut last
night ! Such a farrago of nothings! Such a stale hash of
all that has been bandied about during the last six months,
in the taproom journals of the metropolis! We read, and
pitiedi Give us a etwity boy of two years' standing in
any parochial school in London, and we pledge ourselves
he shall ;write better logic, better English, and better
sense, than were uttered last night by this arbiter of ging-
hams, in the assembled presence of a British House of
Commons. There he stood, face to.face' with men, great
in eloquence and Wisdom, prattling away his glib truisms,
with that intrepid power of countenance, that plentitude of
assurance, which the self-satisfied shop-keeper so naturally
mistakes for equality, when he unexpectedly finds hiMself
in superior society. But he achieved, his object we shall
he told : he obtained. his Committee. Yes ; he did so.
Mr. Canning—c Canning and Waithman brought into con-
tact! The majestic, stately lion, and the pert, frisking
squirrel, side by side !)-.--Mr. Canning tossed down the
sop to the Demosthenes of Fleet•strect, and thus the
matter ended. The Alderman has leis Committee to in-
quire into the Arigna Mining Company ; but among the
members of that Committee we do not find the names of
Sir James Mackintosh, Sir Robert Wilson, Dr. Lushing-
ton, or Mr. Brougham. We have not room for further ob-
servation at present.—New Timm.