The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1842-09-20 00:00:00

TUESDAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 20, 1842

What is a libel ? Few men, we believe, can give an
answer to this question. And yet the law of England
consigns to a penalty, which may amount to absolute
ruin, the unfortunate journalist who has committed an
offence, the guilt of which ninety-nine men out of a
hundred cannot discern ! There is not one journal in
a dozen which is not guilty of libel in every publication
which it issues. There is not one journal in a dozen
which is not every day of its existence at the mercy of
some fool or knave, whose name chances to be men-
tioned in its columns, provided he has as much money
in his pocket as will procure for him the services of an
attorney of " sharp practice," and as much character
as an intelligent jury would be warranted in estimating
at the value of the lowest coin in the realm. Laugh
heartily at a man, quote Shakspeare or Garrick at him,
write his name even, except at a respectful distance
from some epithet or allusion which, by violating gram-
mar and punctuation, may be tortured into connection
with it, and any " Dodson and Fogg" may wave the
whip of the law over your unlucky head, and by the aid
of its " glorious uncertainty," mulct you in a farthing
damages and costs, for au offence which no twelve men,
who know English and possess common sense, would
decide to be an offence at all !

However we may be disposed to regard the sacred-
ness of private character, and however opposed to the
tolerance of too great licence in the press, we must
confess that we cannot but regard the fetters,-by which
that powerful engine is restrained, as oppressive and
absurd. We are accustomed to boast in England that
public opinion is free—that the presS, which is the
mouth by which public opinion speaks, is free ; yet the
law baits it round with traps, into which the most
wary treading will not at all times prevent it from fall-
ing. Upon the most ordinary subjects, the journalist,
if he would be safe, must speak in parables and riddles;
with him " the use of words is indeed to conceal
thoughts." He must eonvevhis mcd.otng by inuendo ;
and even then he must run the risk of his interpreter
being a goose or a hungry legal practitioner. Straight
hitting is forbidden, and shooting in the air is doubly
dangerous, for you may ruffle the feathers of some
senseless fowl of whose very existence you were not

even dreaming.
Really this perplexing state of things ought not to
be. Bind down as you will discussion or remark,—
restrain it as you will from inflicting wanton injury and
pain upon private or public individuals,—put down the
wanton or the wilful libeller; but do draw a line of
distinction between what is libel and what is not,—do
apportion also the amount of punishment to the quan-
tum of offence ! We quarrel not with the general
principle upon which the law of libel is constructed.
We are willing even to allow the apparently incon-
sistent principle, that truth should be a libel; for we
hold it to be unjust that the actions of any man should
he liable to be held up at all times to public observa-
tion, or even to ridicule. But let the truth of a charge
be, at least, a palliation of the offence. Let the animus,
too, be considered. Take away from the prosecutor
the opportunity of selecting that form of proceedings
which will inrolve the greatest amount of inconvenience
and cost to the prosecuted. Make, in a word, the law
of libel a protection to the character and the feelings of
the honest and well-principled, and not merely an in-
strument of tyranny in the hands of the malicious and
designing—a weapon ever ready to be used to crush
the independence of a free and honest press !

Thomas Bolton, the Albion informs us, is about to
retire from the representation of Castle-street Ward ;
and the same luminous authority conceives that the
announcement will drive us frantic with delight. This
determination the said Thomas came to " not from
any apprehension that he would not be re-elected as
triumphantly as he had been before, but from consi-
derations of private convenience." What be they,
Thomas ? What he these motives of private con-
venience ? Are they not all comprised in this—to a
vain man a strong motive—that it is not pleasant to be
contemptuously kicked out, and that, too, mainly by
the disgust of your own friends?

Such would have been the inevitable fate of Thomas
Bolton ; and we are, therefore, not at all obliged to
him for refusing to his friends, and ours, the pleasure
which we should undoubtedly have felt in performing
the operation. We would rather have met Thomas
Bolton, as the candidate for Castle-street Ward, than
any other man, for no other man would have been so
easily beaten. The constituency of his own party are
tired of him—disgusted with his factious iusolence—
his unceasing ebullitions of venom against our esta-
blished church, which even liberals are to be found
who sincerely respect ; and we dare venture to say that
any other liberal candidate—the editor of the Albion
himself, whom, by the bye, we should be delighted to
see in the Council—will poll thirty or forty more votes
than Thomas Bolton could whip up with the purse of
his entire tribe to back him.

We are compelled again to call the attention of the
authorities to the disgusting state in which various
localities of the town are permitted to remain. It is
utterly impossible that the health of our population can
be satisfactory whilst so many fertile sources of disease
meet us in every thoroughfare ; and the authorities
will really not have discharged that duty which they
owe to the public until these nuisances shall have been
removed, and measures taken for the effectual and per-
manent purification of the streets within the borough.
We could point to fifty places which certainly do not
appear to have been visited by the scavenger's broom
for months, and in which that instrument really does
not appear to us likely to be of material benefit if used.
Where drainage is deficient,—where dark filthy pas-
sages stand open,—where owners of oyster stalls are
permitted to throw their shells and offal within a few
feet of crowded thoroughfares,—where nuisances ac-
tually grow faster than they can be rertioved,—preven-
tive measures appear to us to be the on ly ones likely to
be at all efficacious.

We have inspectors parading our streets, and, we
pre;Ume, those inspectors have duties. We presume,
also, that the authorities who employ th em have powers.