The Sun. — 1864-09-17 (London, England)

SOLEMN PROTEST.  (From the Law Times of to•day.)  One of the cheap daily papers, the lowest happily in its character of purveyor of news, although once it gave promise of better things, has adopted a new mode of drawing a penny from the morbidly curious. At the news shops we read, this week, placarded in the largest letters, "Interview of our correspondent with Muller. Muller's statement as to the night of the murder." From the paper itself, so far as credit can be given to this kind of information, it might be learnt that the correspondent led the prisoner Muller into a conversation about the nature of his defence and about his possession of the watch and chain, and other matters, including a cross-examination as to the mode in which ho procured his passagemoney. For any purpose of truth or justice such a conconversation is not worth ink and paper. But it is proper to notice how, for the sake of pandering to the lowest appe • tite for such exciting stuff, the humane principle of British law where the commonest prisoner is concerned, much more where one is on the way to a trial for his life, has been slighted from vulgar motives of gain. According to law, a prisoner is never invited to make any statement to any offi car or any one concerned with him, or to any court where he undergoes either his preliminary or his final trial, nor is he allowed to make a statement without a caution that he may be prejudiced by it in evidence. It is true that a statement made to a newspaper correspondent is not likely, unless the correspondent be sublcenaed, to be actually given in evidence, but the publicity afforded to it causes it to operate on the public, and consequently on the minds of the jurymen. It is easy to caution jurymen to dismiss froea their minds all that they heard or read before they come into court, but as long as men are men the thing is impossible. A great responsibility rests on those who increase the juryman's difficulty by publicly prejudicing cases. All newspapers which set humanity and lawfulness above sordid pence carefully abstain from thus practically interfering with the course of justice. When then shall we think of a newspaper which, in the first days of a prisoner's arrest on a capital charge, when his senses are scattered, before he has even had an opportunity of taking counsel with his legal advisers on his defence, or fur considering his position, allcws its correspondent to thrust himself into the prisoner's cell and question and cross-question him on the vital points of his case, or which, at least, instead of reprimanding a correspondent who has done so, publishes conspicuously the disgraceful result. To take a man at such a disadvantage for selfish ends is base and  cowardly. There is another evil attending this new mole of pressing prisoners into the service of journalism. The accused has granted the correspondent the favour of an interview, which is highly valued by the correspondent's pa} mas'.ers. Will either they or he be slow to return the favour, if afterwards, by leading articles, or in any other way, dust can be thrown in the eyes of the public—for instance, as to the character of circumstantial evidence brought forward by the prosecution at the trial ? In case of an adverse; verdict, commercial urati,u le will induce the journalist to play upon the sympathies of those who are adverse generally to capital punishment. Jurymen will be persuaded to sign pipers that, if they had kr-own so and so at the trial, or if this or that fact were true, they would have given a different verdict. Petitions will be advertised gratis, and be written up before presentation at the Homeoffice, and the Home Minister will be held up to indignation and contempt for not listening to sophistries. The reaction upon journal sm of an unwholesome craving for blood news is capable of very dangerous consequences. We can only trust that on this ground, as well as the ground of humanity, the bad example of the present disreputable attempt to increase circulation will find no tellowere in the decent portion of the press,