The Sun.
London, England, 1845-08-15 00:00:00

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LONDON, FRIDAY, AUG UST 15, 1845.

Often as we have had occasion to direct public atten-
tion to the anomalies of that which, only by a stretch of
extravagant courtesy, can be denominated " law,"—as
administered by the magisterial sages of the county and
the municipal bench, we have never felt more strongly
called upon to discharge that duty. than by the Roches-
ter case, to which we devoted a para,..fraph, headed" Ex-
traordinary Costs," in our paper of Wednesday last. A

man is brought "before a full bench of county tragis
trates" at Rochester, charged with an offence, the hei•
nousness of which, no doubt, it must have required all
the wisdom of the Kentish squires " in the commission'

to deal with, all the forms of a petty session to give ade-
quate effect to the imposing ceremony of tryiEg. He was
accused of" having damaged under wood to the amount of
one penny, belonging to WILLIAM MASTERS SMITH, ,
of Canmer." It is well that posterity should be apprised
of the " title, style and dignity" of the landed proprietor
whose property had been thus flagrantly and extensively
invaded. It is well that " Young England" should have
the enthusiasm of its spirit animated by " a great face"
like this, so proper to confirm its aspirations for the
times when our country rejoiced in the significant ap-
pellation of " merry England." What an august specta•
cle for the descendants of that peasantry who passed,
but a century ago, even, so large a proportion of their
eisure in out-door sports and athletic pastimes,—what a
noble manifestation of the chivalric generosity of the
Kentishmen and Men of Kent,—are presented by the
trial of such a delinquent as this revived JACK CADE, this
devastating " GEORGE LOFT" of Meopham. " The judge
are ranged—a terrible show :" the case is Mated, evi
dence is called, and there is damning proof that GEORGE
LOFT, being instigated by the author of all evil, has

" at the time, and place, and in manner articulate," corn.
mitted the inexpiable trespass and damage " to the
amount of one penny," by cutting and damaging the un-
derwood. A witness had seen him in the act. The cul•
prit, overwhelmed by the enormity and irresistible proof
of his guilt, acknowledges his offence. " The case is
clear," (as the Alabama Judge thundered in the ear of
Silas Fixings, according to the pleasant ballad of the
" Alabama Duel,")—the six magistrates who have heard
it adjudge LOFT to pay the damages—one penny : toge•
ther with sixteen shillings costs.
This is an "equitable adjustment" with a vengeance !
The civil injury is assesQed at one penny ; the costs—
for the law harpies, constables, the clerk of the justices
and the great unknown, who has the residuary and
larger interest in these fees,—at exactly ONE HUNDRED
AND SIXTY-TWO TIMES as much as the d '77:ages ! That
pnuortheling may be
ydisinterestwedanethianng
character
theerof dtiligentwfihedti,lehumane,
proceeding,and

WILLIAM MASTERS SMITH, Esq., of Canmer, the com-
plainant or plaintiff, the " wronged one,"—he whose
rights of underwood have ben thus feloniously and des-
perately violated to the amount of four farthings, is
stated (though this fact does appear incredible) to have
been sitting all this time on Me bench. In his own per-
son, this " fine old Kentish gentleman," (as we imagine
him to be,) is there—an unbiassed, indifferent, impar-
tial arbitrator, it may be, or rather (if we may judge
by the sentence of the bench), over inclined to extreme
forbearance and humanity towards the offender; but, as
it provokingly happens, in the triune capacity of plain-
tiff, judge, and jury, in his own case:—a magisterial
Brahma, from whose triple function and many handed
clutch it was not very likely that this penny marauder
should escape. So this council of six condemned the
man to pay the Id. in the shape of damages, and the
sixteen shillings in the shape of costs, or in default of
payment to committal to the House of Correction for
one calendar month. The man has not the money, the
magistrates have the option, so the prison has the man.
WILLIAM MASTERS SMITH, Esq., we are afraid, must
now summon up fortitude enough to bear manfully the
damage of his underwood, although it is thus ascer-
tained to amount to one penny, but he may enjoy the
proud satisfaction of having provided GEORGE LOFT
with subsistence for one whole calendar month,
at the expense of the county, indeed, at d
to be sure only on prison fare. What
then? Has he not vindicated the majesty of the law 7
Has he net bravely upheld the sacred and indefeasible
rights of property? We marvel at the scandalous dis-
content, the inexcusable surliness, with which the pauper
labourer and the lower classes of husbandry regard the
circumstances of their own condition in reference to
those of the condition in which PROVIDENCE has placed
their landlords and employers—the landed aristocracy
of their neighbourhoods or districts. That these un-
reasonable and unreasoning industrial classes should
look with a jaundiced eye upon the wealth, the posses-
sions, the luxury of the rich—should be prone to con-
sider themselves little cared for and less protected by
their superiors—should be apt to consider their " natural
protectors" (as these latter term themselves) somewhat
more given to listen to the dictates of selfishness and the
suggestions of self-interest, than the promptings of an
enlightened and enlarged liberality to others, especially
to the poor and unemployed around them ; all this is
most surprising. What can evince a more anxious soli-
citude for their moral welfare, and their inflexible per-
severance in the habitual discipline of honesty than these
visitings of criminal derelictions, even where they ex-
tend to the sacrifice of but one pennyworth of prepery•
At the same time we are somewhat curious to know
what it is that large farmers—whether tenants or free-
holders—and a powerful -squirearchy, who are opposed
to the repeal of the corn-laws, and to every other
measure of that kind which would certainly reduce the
price of subsistence to the poor, and multiply the few
comforts which the fiscal and political exigencies of the
State have left them ; what it is they propose to them-
selves by the merciless straining of every penal enact-
ment which can be brought to bear upon offences intrin-
sically of the most trivial or indifferent character ? We
were once weak enough to hope that Parliament would
not have separated, notwithstanding the important de-
mands of the grouse shooting and Continental tour-
making at this season, without at least passing some
measure to reform those statutes thus elaborately dis-
proportioning penalties to offences and costs to penalties,
under which country justices and police magistrates
" play such fantastic tricks" as make the wretches weep,"
and which are destined (we are firmly persuaded), at no
distant day, to arouse the indignation and resentment of
the public, and to replace such atrocious anomalies by
some more consistent, more decent, more equitable
scheme of apportioning in every case the punishment to
the delinquency.

There is no profession, no business, no trade, no
calling, we sincerely believe, so much exposed as that
which it is our misfortune to follow, to misrepresenta-
tion of motives, and misconception of opinions and prin-
ciples, in all cases where these happen to be adverse to
the pretensions or the interests—as in many cases they
necessarily must be—of some one class or other, whose
sensitiveness is so extreme that the mere force of con-
sciousness often makes them cry out, before, even, they
are so much as, intentionally, hinted at But journalism
is also the most devoted of vocations. Theyfwhose
property is embarked in it are marked out for the prey
of those whose honest efforts are directed to extracting a
furtive property out of it. The state of the law is so
anomalous, on all that regards the press, that it drops
almost all the favorite presumptions in dealing with any
charges that are preferred against newspapers, which it
would recognize in dealing with charges against ttey
class of her Nl.a.rEsTy's subjects, not connected with
them. The rule being, as to all other persons, to put
the most favoureble construction on motives, the ex-
ception is taken against owners, editors, and writers in
the public papers. The absence of all equity in this
invidious distinction may be illustrated by the considera-
tion that if an editor do not display all vigilance
in announcing, as they occur, new cases of misde-
meanour, fratd, or other offences, of which it is necessary,
either for the protection of their interests or the gratifi
cation of their curiosity, that the public should be in.
formed; and the most uncompromising boldness in de-
nouncing such delinquencies and holding up the parties
who are proved guilty of them to the reprobation of the
virtuous and the honest ;—that editor is rendered con-
temptibl,, not to say infamous, in the eyes of his coun-
trymen by his moral pusillanimity, If, on the other
hand, he fearlessly discharge his most re. poneible and
important task, and, either in the hurry of composition,
or the interruptions and distractions of his business, he
happen, out of a great variety of facts proved on the
trial to assume one, by mistake, as proved, which was
only implied, no proof upon it having been gone into,
he is liable to an action for such oversight, although, in
the first place, the mistake may not in the slightest
degree affect the merits of the case against the party so
proceeding against him, and although, in the second, the
inference may be irresistible that the fact is precisely
identical with the assumption. One of the most sin-
gular and vexatious liabilities to which an editor may
subj,ct a newspaper, in the total absence of all design
to give offence, and in the discharge of his habitual
duty, has just been afforded by an action brought against
a respectable and well-known provincial journal, under
the following circumstances :—Two parties, a Mr. DEW
(an estate agent in the Strand), and another halividual re-
siding at Bay swater, were stated, in an account given by
the Times newspaper, to have been brought up before
the magistrate, at the Marlborough-street police-office,
charged with being concerned in an illegal negotiation
for the sale of an East India cadetship, in violation of
the 40th Geo. 111., which makes such a proceeding a
misdemeanour. The Times report, in describing the
history of the transaction (which it is not necessary here
to go into), affirmed that the gentleman by whose in-
influence and credit it was represented, to a Mr. Coe-
PARD, that the cadetship could be obtained was a Mr.
SHANK, who had once been a Director of the East India
Company ; and that on the production of a certain do-
cument, "purporting to be signed by that gentleman,"
Mr. COPPARD paid down 1,0501. in the nature of "con-
sideration money." Evidence was called to disprove this
signature. The Brighton Guardian, in transferring an
abstract of this report into its columns, described this
result thus :—that the pretended signature of SHANK
was " proved to be a forgery." Now, if the affirmative
fact of a signature being genuine is disproved, it seems
to us the most legitimate of all conclusions that can be
jumped to, that the negative fact is thereby established.
If that which purports to be the signature of A. B. is
proved not to be such, the signature of A. 8., by all
necessary inference, must have been forged. But
the Mr. DEw, who was brought up before
the Marlborough-street police magistrate, and ad-
mitt, d to bail, subsequently brings an action be-
fore a sheriff's jury, to assess damages against the
publisher of the Brighton Guardian for a libel, inasmuch
as this mode of stating the facts amounted to an imputa-
tion of forgery, which had had
_the effect of seriously
damaging aim in his businese. Accordingly, Mr. DEw's
book-keeper was called, who deposed that his master's
business connexion lay chiefly in Sussex, and that, since
the lith of June, the day on which the libellous miss
statement was published in the Brighton Guardian, Mr
Dew's business had marvellously fallen off The busi.

Less Lad, prior to that time, been worth from 1,500/. to
1.6001. a-par. "For a fortnight no letter came from
Sussex." Uu his cress-examination by Mr. JAMES, this
witness admitted that DEW had been three times before
the police magistrate, and that, after the report in the

-
Times got down into Sussex, they had no more letters.
He said that the business generally had fallen off—that
in Sussex in particular—and that himself and Mr.
Dxw's two other clerks had now not much to do
except to be looked at. We fully concur in the
Opinion expressed by the Learn d Counsel for the
Brighton Guardtan, " that the falling off of the plain-
tiff's business must have been owing, not to the pub-
lication of the paragraph cornp!ained of by him, in the
Sussex papers, but to the charge of being concerned in
the illegal sale of the cadetship, for which he was
taken three times be fore a police magistrate," and the de-
tails of which had been previously published in the Times.
Now, is it not scandalous that editors of newspapers,
in the honest discharge of their business, should be left,
by the present preposterous condition of the law of
libel, like trial targets, to be shot at (under ridicul-
ous pretences vv hich no man is compelled to believe, and