The Sun.
London, England, 1842-08-04 00:00:00

AEI. ROEBUCK'S COMMITTEE,

TO. TIIE EDITOR OF TIIE TIMEt
Sir,—On Saturday last you announced, in the
Times newspaper, that you were enabled t.) lay be-
fore the public a portion of the Report from the Select
Committee of the House of Commons on Election
Proceedings before it had been issued for the use of
Members ; and with such announcement you also in-
timated that you had obtained that copy at the earliest
moment after the document had been confided to the
printers' hands.
Holding an important public trust, and having been
always anxious for the faithful performance of the
duties of the trust, we find ourselves placed in the
painful position of an imputation of faithlessness hav-
ing been cast upon us, through the instrumentality
and under circumstances which involve the integrity
and honour of the public press.
We direct your attention to the subject, feeling as-
sured that you, the unconscious cause, viewing the
painful position, will, jealous of your honour, be
quick in quarrel with the circumstances that have
occasioned it, and prompt to vindicate the integrity
of the public press, by sifting and revealing these
circumstances, and showing that they had not your
sanction—as well as equally prompt for our sake, in
the way you think proper to remove the unjust
and injurious suspicions which have been created
by your announcement, ranking us, unjustly, in the
world's estimation, as public servants who betray
their trust, either by themselves or by the servants in
their establishment—the latter, althougli.not sin im-
•putOd:act' against us ihdividually,.being 'of consider-.
able importance to us, because • our establishment,,
being thereby rendered ibsufficient for confidence,: is,
eqtialty'Unfittector futuf6 trust; as' if the breach had,
been. committed :by.. Or-ivith the sanction .of the prin-
cipal in Whoni the , trust or <responsibility was con-

To assist your inquiry into the circumstances we
acquaint you with thelacts•within our knowledge.
• Tht facts known- to us :are these That we- were
not 'applied to-by: you for the copy ;.'that,We received
ne authority t6.supplryou With the copy: and that
We did not sanction the delivery to you of the portion
'of the copy of the Repdrt, which evidently 'Came into
your possession before the issue to Members. This
portion.of the Report, therefol.e.:, must have been par
*ivied, and we have..not been able to ascertain who or
:which of, our• establishment furnished the copy. in
,question,-although. we are assured that the copy must
have been,procuredfrom so:ne• one• or more of _that
-establishment by,the,yile means of a base bribe.'
It is Out of ourpower :to traee this matter. withoul
;Our asSi§tAnees •• The 'means of tracing it. clearly lif
with you, having. 'The proof of the' act which'occa
signed tho.,e CircurnStanceS in your-possession ; frohi
`whom you receivedit -you will be able to obtain in-
'`form-ation as•to how and from. Whoni it was:proCured,
and so onward, until you arrive at the false servant
who has, betrayed ;hi trust.
The absence 4 all secrecy and mystery in:the an-
nouncement'jay, you of, the soiree whence the Infor-
mation was 'procured, leads us,to the conviction that
Ton could:mot:have .cormived,:', when you directed the
publication and -penned, your: observations, either in
'the, slightest degree,` the 'publication was unautho-
rised,' or 'that the gireinatances under which the copy
was proc*red.',Were'''open to "The, slightest -objpetion.
Now, we, knowing as a principte,of thity'Whatoeught
_not to have been, feel, and have had occasion to feel,
that the announcement has given rise to exception
against the printer.
Placed, therefore, in these circumstances; unwit-
tingly as we conceive by yourself, the bare commu-
nication of the facts cannot but arouse your indigna-
tion to repudiate alike the act and the actors, which
has, or who have, produced them. The immediately
active and urgently impelling motive of desire for the
public welfare and the instinctive acuteness to dis-
cover demoralising effects, displayed in that bright
array of talent for which your journal is distinguished,
will materially assist you.
All establishments are liable to suffer more or less
from the acts of servants or employees; and if it shall
be found that your liberality of reward for that in-
telligence and activity which are absolutely essential
for the procuring early information for the benefit of
the public, has been abused and perverted from the
intended uses by taxing the shrewdness of some one
of the procureurs for the Public Press to demoralising
uses, then will you he rejoiced at the opportunity of
showing that the gold of the Times Journal shall not
be spent to buy, with impunity, of those procureurs
of the Public Press, who, regardless of the means
they use, care not whether they bring dishonour to
that Press, so long as they receive, to gild their shame,
the golden fruits of their bribery and corruption.
Relying that you will take the' most fitting steps in
relation to the facts and circumstances herein commu-
nicated and observed upon, we are, Sir, your obedient
servants, J. and J. HANSARD,
Printers to the House of Commons.
Thursday, July 28.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES.
Sir,—Obliged by your prompt consideration and
notice of the subject to which we directed your atten-
tion in our letter of yesterday, we feel the force of
your observation, that, if there had been fault, as we
supposed, we could hardly expect you to promote the
punishment of those by whose fault you, as for your-
selves, had been benefited ; and we feel therefore
that we ought to rest satisfied, as we are, with your
assurance of the erroneous character of our suspicions,
notwithstanding that, without more precise explana-
tion, we are left in a seeming mystery as to conjec-
ture how the act pointed out by us could have been
otherwise than we have described. We are, Sir, your
obedient servants,_

J. and LUKE J. HANSARD,
Printers to the House of Commons.
Friday, July 29.

MESSRS. HANSARD AND THE
~ TIMES."

The Messrs. Hansard, the printers of the House of
Commons, have addressed a very curious letter to
the Times, which we have copied for the amusement,
as well as the information of our readers. It is ne-
cessary, however, that we should state the occasion of
this letter, and add one or two particulars of colla-
teral information, in order that the public may fully
enjoy the joke. For the last eight or ten years we
have been continually applying to the Messrs. Han-
sard to let us know how it was that the Times hap-
pened so frequently to be successful in obtaining
sooner than any body else, not excepting Members of
the House, copies of Reports of Committees, and
other interesting documents placed by order of the
House of Commons in the hands of this firm, in
order to their being printed for the use of Members.
We could never obtain the least light from the
Messrs. Hansard into the nature of this mystery, and
all that we could do, therefore, was to take care that
so many intimations of what was going on should be
given to these tradesmen, that they should not have
the slightest pretext for denying, whenever the
matter might attract the attention of their em-
ployers, that they had all along been cognizant of
its existence. Well, the matter has at length attracted
the notice of the employers of the Messrs. Hansard,
or, to speak. more correctly, has been forced upon
their attention by the ungrateful, or treacherous, or
at the least very blundering conduct of the journal
which has for years been enjoying, to the detriment
of all its competitors, whatever priority in the publi-
cation of Parliamentary documents the run of Messrs.
Hansard's printing-office could afford it. By long
possession, the Times, it seems, had begun to regard
so much as a matter of right the exclusive privilege
of publishing whatever was sent to the printing-office
of the Messrs. Hansard, that our Contemporary
actually apologised, on Saturday last, to his readers
for his inability to give more than a part of the Elec-
tion Compromises Report several hours prior to itk
being placed in the hands of Memb'ers of Parliament,
upon the express ground that this Report had not
been sent so soon as it ought to have been sent to the
office of the Parliamentary printer. The words of the
Times were these, and they certainly have the merit
of revealing the whole affair with a degree of clearness
that doe:: not admit of misapprehension:--
" We are at last enabled to lay before our readers the
greater and more important portion of the Report from
Mr. Roebuck's Committee, which will probably be issued
for the use of Members in the course of to-day.
" Unfortunately, in consequence of the late hour at
which the grand inquisitor confided the precious docu-
ment to the printer's hands, that portion of the Report
which relates to the case of Penryn and Falmouth did
not reach us in time for our impression."
This was so explicit that the Speaker of the House
was startled 'by it, and, as in duty bound, the Messrs.
Hansard, the servants of the House of Commons,
were startled too. The latter, accordingly, • betook
themselves to the inditing of eloquent epistles to mys-
tify' the matter if 'possible, ,by pretending that the
whole affidr is a matter of bribery, that the present
is a peculiar instance, and that the espy must have
,been procured "by the vile, means of a base bribe,"
given and received .of course by the mere subs, or
the subs of subs, in the several offices of the Messrs.
Hansard and of our Contemporary. The Times in-
sorts the letter, upon the principle, we suppose, that
it ought not to keep back from its readers any thing
that is calculated to make them laugh; but stoutly
refuses to lend itself to the Hansard mystification, pre-
Terring, as we think very judiciousty, a better and
bolder tnyStification of its own. What chance was
there, indeed, that anybody would give credit to the
tale of a system of base bribes" between the subs of
two. such establishmenti, without the knoWledge of
the principal persons, although continued for years,
and presenting indicatiorii of its existence tied effi-
ciency, which no man who did not wilfully shut Phis
eyes could fail to perceive? The story, eloquently
as the Messrs. Hansard have put it forward, contra-
dicts itself so completely, that it does not require the
farther' contradiction we'are enabled to give it, by the
assertion that Messrs. Hansard. were NOrned. not
once or twice, but repeatedly, that the Times was