The Sun.
London, England, 1827-01-11 00:00:00

GRIFFITHS V. .101137 WOLIN, JUN.

This was an action to recover the sum of 5001. and interest,
secured to the plaintiff_ by a bond in the penal sum of 5,000/,
dated the 25th of February, 1824. The plaintiff and defendant
were attornies, and had been in partnership from the 24th of
June 1822, down to the date of the bond, which was given to
secure to the plaintiff; on retiring from the business, the sum of
2,000/., payable hy instalments of 500/. each, with interest. For
the defendant it was contended that the bond was obtained by the
plaintiff on his guarantee that certain partnership debts, which
were left to be collected by Mr. Wilks, were good debts ; but AO
guarantee to that effect being produced, the jury, under the direc-
tion of the Lord Chief Justice, found a verdict for the plaintiff—.
Damages Is. for the detention of the debt, and '7Bll. 16s. 4d. for
the non-performance of the condition.

WIGNEV AND OTHERS V. THAVAITES AND OTHERS.

Mr. GURNEY stated the case to the jury. The plaintiffs i❑
this case were respectable hankers, carrying on business at
Brighton, who sought by this action to recover from the defend-
ants, the proprietors of the Morning Herald newspaper, a com-
pensation in damages, for the injury they bad sustained by the
publication of a libel in that paper. The action was properly
brought- in London, where it womld be tried by a jury of gentle-
men engaged in commercial transactions, who
.were, best able to
value commercial character, and hest qualified to appreciate the
injury that might he sustained by such unfounded calumnies. To
report that any individual engaged in trade was in a state of
in-
solvency, might produce to them the most ruinous consequences,
but most particularly to a banker; and if there was at any period
of our history, one time more than another, that could rendersuch
a report productive of the most disastrous consequences to parties
engaged in the business of the plaintiffs, it was that period when
the report now complained of was published, when the mercantile
world was involved in distress and difficulties unequalled at any
former period, and when several of the must respectable banking
firms, both in London and the country, had been obliged to sus-
pend their payments. Under the date of the 22d of February,
18,,46, the defendant, in his paper of the 24th of that month,
published the following, purportingto be a letter from Brighton :-
1 " Brighton, Feb. 22.
- - -

„ -
When I wrote to you a short time since, announcing the failure
of the banks of Messrs. Lashmar and Co., and -Messrs. Tamplin,
Creasy, and Gregory, I did not imagine that I should 'so soon have
occasion to write to you upon a similar subject. At that time
such precautions were used by the firms which withstood the
shock, as it was supposed placed them beyond the remit of any
future concussion ; and such was the confidence placed in their
solvency by the principal inhabitants of this town and neighbour-
hood, that the day of the failure of the other hanks, nearly all the
resident nobility, gentry, and tradesmen of Brighton and Lewes
signed a declaration of their willingness to take the notes of Messrs.
:Mitchell, Mills and Co., Messrs. Wigney and Co., and Messrs.
West and. Co. • (the bankers who had not stopped payment),' to
any amount.

o
namely,
n y"
nhiayv me esllLripeehnodleyddttilitty.h.topa7nnoeiul
tnse,e
thalttwis onooTtlhieoswe efivrem%
those of Messrs. Mills and Co., and Messrs. Wigney and Co. At
this moment there is a most severe run upon the remaining
hank,
that of West and Co.
The North-street (in which these banks were carried on) is, in
fact, completely blocked up. You can have no idea of .the con-
fusion and consternation that prevail. The
.failnre of Messrs.
Mitchell, Mills and Co., is attributable solely to that of their lon-
don bankers, Sir John Perring and Co., and it is really melan-
choly to think, that a firm which has for
long a period main-
tained its respectability, and which made so:eft:whin! a stand to
support its credit during the late panic, should now, in conse-
quence of unforeseen circumstances, be forced to suspend its pay-
ments. Out of five banks which lately flourished in Brighton,
only one now remains."
It was unnecessary for hint (Mr. Gurney) to remind the jury of
the proximity to Brighton, of the facilities of conveyance, and
the rapidity with which reports of this nature were circulated, at
a time like that, to the
.ruin of individuals. The plaintiffs were
unable to lay before the jury any actual proof of the damage they
had sustained ; but as men experienced in the world, aware of
the destructive tendency of such a report, it was for the jury to
say what injury must have been done by a newspaper—cer-
tainly a respectable newspaper—setting forth to the world a no-
tification that Wigney and. Co. had suspended their payments.
It was lamentable that the proprietons of newspapers would not
be more circumspect in what they published. It was lamentable
that they should permit themselves to become instruments in the
hands of persons actuated by malicious Motives, and when they
did find that they had been misled, it would become them to
give up the authors. of the offending paragraphs to the punish-