66 Letter on Affairs in general. [JAN. 



tion was brought against the Salopian Journal, in which the plaintiff 

 obtained 100 damages. Another action against the Birmingham 

 Journal, for copying that paragraph (and, I rather think, adding some 

 remarks), was tried at Gloucester, and the verdict was for 400 da- 

 mages. Subsequently, a third action is brought against the Times, for 

 copying the Birmingham Journal. The Times does not " justify," or 

 offer to prove the truth of the copied statement; because the Birmingham 

 Journal, in the former action, had tried to " justify," and the justification 

 had been incomplete. The verdict for the plaintiff, however, against the 

 Times, (in the court at Westminster), was only for 5 ; and ten of the 

 jury were disposed to give him only a farthing. 



Now it will occur to every body, 1 think, who reads Mr. Hunt's case 

 (the Examiner), that the law of LIBEL in this country stands in' a 

 most extraordinary position. The power which it gives to courts in cases 

 of indictment is terrific ; and, at the same time, the law itself is so absurd 

 so monstrous that it needs only to be a little more hotly acted upon 

 than it has been, and there can be no doubt that it must be altered. The 

 peculiarity of the law of LIBEL, applicable to cases of indictment and 

 that in which it differs from the law of every other known offence is 

 that it brings the defendant into court not to be tried but to be con- 

 victed. It is not merely that the plaintiff's proof of the publication of some- 

 thing calculated to injure or provoke him, shall constitute the offence 

 but that it shall conclude the trial. The Examiner has stated that M. 

 Bochsa is a < convicted felon." On the trial that single statement is 

 proved ; and the defendant cannot open his mouth and he must be found 

 guilty. Mr. Hunt has stated that M. Bochsa was convicted of felony ; the 

 Times newspaper, on the day after Mr. Hunt's trial, publishes an extract 

 from the Moniteur of February the 17th, 1818, purporting to be a report 

 of the sentence pronounced by the Court of Assize of Paris upon Nicholas 

 Bochsa, for seven distinct forgeries. The conclusion of that report runs 

 thus : " The court pronounces Nicholas Bochsa guilty of all these for- 

 geries " (there being still others, upon which he is not tried), " and 

 condemns him to twelve years of forced labour to be branded with the 

 letters T. F.," &c. &c. ; and yet, if Mr. Hunt had offered the record of 

 that very conviction and sentence, as evidence in the Court of King's 

 Bench, *to justify that which he had said, he could not, BY LAW, have 

 been heard, even so far as to say that they existed. 



Then what a precious state of affairs will this law if it be only well 

 acted upon place us in ! It is a LIBEL to say that a man has been 

 convicted of felony, who has been convicted of felony ; and you cannot 

 be heard nor even allowed to produce his conviction in your defence. 

 There is not a thief sentenced to be transported at the Old Bailey, who 

 has not a clear case of indictment and the certainty of a verdict 

 against every newspaper that publishes his trial ; and Heaven knows what 

 would become of the people who print the " Dying Speeches," if it were 

 not that dead men bring no indictments, any more than they tell tales ; 

 for even the rope which cuts short Thomas Huggins* or Alexander Sprig- 

 gins's breath, is no estoppal to his right of action.* 



* The restriction does not stop here. It is not at all confined to newspapers if the 

 law is to be acted upon. The law laid down in Sir Francis Burdett's case distinctly 

 was, that putting a letter into the post amounted to "publication;" in which case, 



any 



