The Staffordshire and Potteries Examiner. — 1880-07-24 (Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England)

THE CHARGE.  In charging the Cr—rand Jury the Commissioner said he did not home that there was anything in the calendar that he could congratulate them upon, either as regards the nature of cases or the 'timber of offences. T here eeemed to be forty.forir cases for trial. They were the usual dmeription of offenceo. There were several casea of bigamy, several of burglary, a good many, as usual, of stealing, and some of those he did not think called for any observation from him, as he thought their experience would be sufficient to enable them to deal with them. There were two or three serious offences which he should not pass over without notice. Number four in the calendar was a case of a man who was charged with two separate offences, of a most abominable character committed upon children six years of age. He believed they would find on looking at the evidence in this case that it would he imposeible to get on without the testimony of the children—four children—. there were two is each case, none of them exceeding the age of seven years, whilst eome of them were of the age of hia. In cases of children of that tender age they would naturally look to see whether their evidence was corrobrated by circumstances; for his own part he thought it was uncorroborated. Having referred in detail to several cases of rape, he said that there was • case of libel, regarding which he thought he ought to make a few olwervations. It Wes numbers 2Z. and 20 on the calendar, and it was an indictment charging two defendants named William Owen and Hamilton Nicholton with unlawfully and ' maliciously pnblinhing a defamatory libel on a Mr. George Bradford, and they would find that the libel eon. slated of an article published in the pages of a penny journal, intended to be of a comical character, called spb.'. Ile did not sec any spice in it himself—though, he snppoeed, this was a matter of taste—but he concluded, after reading this journal, that it was intended for a class of readers of a somewhat low nature, and possessing also a voracious appetite for ecandel. This paper, soft fact, was alleged to contain a libel on Mr. Bradford. who, he presumed, was a mmiber of the Watch Committee of the Hanley Town Council; and it was entitled, " The New M.P. (Moral Philosopher) for Hanley," and also was alleged to designate Mr. Brad. ford as "Committer Bitukum." It would be for them to say, after reeding the libel, whether—attliongh he did not think the libel contained any formidable charges against Mr. Bradford—it was intwided to bring him into ridicule. Ile did not think there was anything worse, and sate any "sting," well, he had been unable to see that himself. Whether it contained this cruet it was quite unnecessary to constitute it libel, in point of law, but if they thon,glit the object was turn Mr. Bradford into ridicule, and to hold him up as a ludicrous person, that would constitute libel in point of law, enough to put the persons iadicated open their trill. He was very much afraid, from reading thia publication, that it wan aspecimen of the:odious practice, too common, at they all knew, in newspapers on the other side of the Atlantic, of holding up all public men to ridicule and contempt, and of introducing into their pages private scenes with the families of such persons. They all knew what the effect had been—to very nearly drive all sensitive men from public life—and this practice, unfortunately, was as prevalent in • certain class of newspapers in Linden as in the country, and it might therefore be of public importance that the case should be dealt with in an Assize Court. If the defendants had any right to comment in a public way in the manner they had on Mr. Bradford, they might urge a plea, under Lord Campbell's Act, of justification, but it would be for the jury to say, after xamieing the case, whether they thoaght there could ho any truth in the plea or not. Having alluded to a charge against a servant named Ann Wall for the manslaughter of her child, Sarah Wall, at West. bromwich which was the most serious one at the present assizes, and in which, he was afraid, the Grand Jury would have no alternative bat to had a true bill for murder against the accused, and to another case of manslaughter from Albrighton, he said he need not detain them any longer from their duties, and expressed Is hope that they would soon eend down some short cases for trial, as possibly some of the longer cases would occupy much of their time.