The Sun.
London, England, 1845-03-29 00:00:00

LIABILITY OF THE PRESS.

Our columns of yesterday furnish another proof 0,
the enormous risk, or rather certainty, of expense en.
tailed by a faithful record and investigation of daily
occurrences. It is our contract with the public, and one
which they expect to see discharged to the letter, to
slate every event of any interest or consequence that the
day may bring forth, and, inasmuch as mere insulated
facts are mere gossip, it is part of our contract to state
them in their must probable and most profitable con-
nexion. The moment we confined ourselves to a mere
registration of calamity, the public would speedily ob-
serve, " There is no speculation in thine eye," and
transfer their patronage to those who endeavoured to
fulfil the just expectations of rational men, and who
commented on disaster with a view to obviate its recur-
rence. Yet many disasters are obviously of that sort,
that it is impossible to trace them and account for them,
without criminating individuals. The moment you
touch on a cause, you elicit the human defendant.
Somebody finds himself at the bar of the public, who
may very probably find it easier to show that an
allegation has been made without irresistible proof,
than that it is utterly without foundation. As
we are expected to be perfect, it is uceless to
hint at the chance of error in some hundreds of new
communications every twenty-four hours. We will just
mention a case or two to illustrate the unavoidable ne-
cessity of implicating human agents, and interfering
with particular interests. We have been absolutely
oblivd to show up the abominations of the Spa-fields
burial-ground. That exposure has been ruinous to the
lessees, who are now adding only. two or three bodies a
Sunday to their mass of putrefaction, instead of 30 or
40. If we do but attract from a blue book the account
of a row of houses built in wanton disregard of the
that the present
can. A
rules of decency and health, of course we, injure that
property; and though Parliament cannotdotnv agricul-
turalirtngtleipnruers
murrain
a,
meeting
nNv hci cahnl reichceionr
otherdswiit
tsh
d ate foproceedings,resolvedreign cattle. Had we
thought that opinion probable, we should have said so,
and thereby done a mischief to the importers, perhaps
themselves
.the breeders. . The _ press has published
much information on the rot in sheep, very useful
to farmers generally, but very pri-jadicial to
the name of certain districts of pasturage. The cider
of certain counties Las been denounced for the lead it
had acquired from the cisterns, and that publicity has
secured a better mode of preparation. Many writers
have brought various charges against the several water
companies. M`Culloch, for example, says, after some-
body else, that none of them do as much to purify their
water as they might do, and ought to do. This of course
is a statement likely to afft.ct their custom and their divi-
dends. We are occasionally obliged, in our account of
the markets, to designate the butchers who sell 1.1350U1id
meat, and the fishmongers who offer tinseasonable fish.
And of course in many instances we are obliged to be
content, nut with an ex pa; to statement, but a state-
ment on one respectable authority. Now, then, to the