386 
The rival .eagerness, of the. numerous 
agents of that press to seize upon-every 
flying rumour, that can gratify the” 
avidity, “both of the great vulgar and 
the small,’ for mysterious anecdote, 
personality, and chit-chat (rather, per- 
haps, than malignant) slander, did most 
assuredly, for a while, blacken, much 
beyond the measure of equity and truth, 
the character of the unfortunate cul- 
prit. Accumulated charges of profligacy 
‘and prodigality were heaped upon the 
character of Mr. Fauntleroy, sufficient 
to have broken the backs of all the 
banking firms in the metropolis. To 
support his luxurious prodigalities, it 
was supposed, the enormous and un- 
doubted forgeries had been committed ; 
and Messrs. Marsh, Stracey, and Gra- 
ham, together with all who had confided 
in them, were involved in ruin, by the 
unprincipled dissipation of the managing 
and confidential partner; who had ap- 
pealed to forgery, when other resources 
failed, to supply his criminal indul- 
gences. 
To suspect those partners of having 
been accessory to the dissemination of 
these statements, would be as unautho- 
rized, as it would be uncharitable; but 
surely it may not be improper to inquire 
whether, if they knew them to be untrue, 
they were not called upon, to discourage 
and contradict them? If the press was 
misled by gaping newsgatherers, who, like 
the spies of a distempered government, 
must have credulity or invention to 
make out a tale, if they mean to get 
‘bread by telling,—it was as open to them 
to confute the exaggerations, as it was, 
to the gleaners and glossers of the ran- 
dom gossip of @lubs and coffee-houses, 
to give them ephemeral currency. 
But, perhaps, they may answer (for 
they might answer truly) that it was 
better to leave misrepresentation to its 
natural course—to let the lie of the day 
gossip itself out of breath ; for that Mr. 
Fauntleroy, in the end, would be any 
thing rather than injured by the ex- 
aggerated colourings of his crime. 
That such has been the result, is 
sufficiently. obvious: that such must, 
ultimately, be the case with respect to 
all the aberrations of a free press, re- 
collection and reflection will demon- 
strate: it is only inasmuch as it is not 
free, that the press can be permanently 
or ultimately injurious, even to those 
whom it wrongfully assails: for the day 
of reaction, if it be free, is sure to 
come; when the very wrongs it has 
committed will become graces. 
. Whence, but from this very cause, it 
Topic of the Month.—Mr. Fauntleroy, 
[Dec. 1, 
may confidently be demanded, has arisen 
that very general and very liberal sym- 
pathy expressed for the impending fate 
_of Mr. Fauntleroy ? 
Far be it from the thought of every 
friend to the essential justice of hu- 
manity, when the life of a fellow being 
is at stake, to step between the plead- 
ing pity of the public, however excited, 
and the attribute of mercy which “ be- 
comes the throned monarch better than 
his crown,” and to which that sympathy 
appeals. But, assuredly, it may be 
said, without detriment to such appeal, 
which may be urged upon more co- 
gent principles, that there is nothing, in 
the naked case of Mr. Fauntleroy to 
distinguish it so broadly from those of 
many a wretched victim, who has been 
quietly resigned to the merciless pe- 
nalty of a sanguinary law, without a 
sigh or an effort in his behalf, except 
from private and personal connections. 
It would be absurd to suppose, ‘that 
the extent of the injury resulting from 
the crime, is the cause of the extensive 
sympathy exerted in favour of the cri- 
minal.. Whence, then, has arisen this 
extraordinary sympathy, but primarily 
from those very exaggerations which 
the enemies of the public press, on 
every such occasion, would use as an 
argument for its suppression. It can- 
not be said that they had any in- 
fluence in procuring the conviction. 
The Attorney-General found no _po- 
litical motive for availing himself of 
the prejudices excited; he repelled and 
discarded them, therefore, in a man- 
ner which, it is hoped, willbe remembered 
as a precedent on all future occasions 
whatever ; and nothing could be more 
candid and dispassionate than the whole 
proceedings. Mr. Fauntleroy, in fact, 
was convicted, as far as the forgery* 
was at issue, upon “his own evidence. 
He had most strangely recorded against 
himself, that he had committed a mass 
of forgeries, which should make the 
Bank smart for having injured the cre- 
dit of his house. Let the Bank Direc- 
tors beware, that in pursuing their vic- 
tim to execution, they mingle, in their 
turn, no feeling of retaliative revenge. 
Some of them, perhaps, are members of 
the Bible Society; or,:at least, occa- 
sionally say their prayers—Let them 
remember, that in that short and beau- 
tiful 
* The verdict, from technical considera- 
tions, was of necessity taken upon the ut- 
tering. But the argument refers not to the 
technicalities, but the general merits, -of 
the case, ' : 
