468 P^iblicalion of Police Reports. [May, 



the verjr same tendency which publicity has to bring out evidence 

 against a culprit, it has also (and perhaps in a greater degree) to elicit 

 evidence in his favour. The best possible mode by which we can pro- 

 ceed to ascertain the truth of any statement, must be to expose it to 

 challenge from all who may have information applying to it, as freely as 

 possible. In all the country, there are but twelve men — the twelve who 

 are to sit upon his particular trial — as to whom it can be of the slightest 

 consequence to the prisoner what charges they may have heard against 

 him. These men try him upon an oath (of which more in a moment) 

 to take no heed of his guilt, though it should be obvious (by documents 

 out of doors) a thousand times ; but to look only how far it is proved by 

 the evidence produced to them in court. Wlien a statement is made 

 against any individual, and sworn to, which he denies generally, but has 

 not evidence (as he alleges) to prove to be untrue, is it not the greatest 

 favour that can be done to that man to publish the ex parte statement 

 against him as widely as possible, in order to take the chance that those 

 charges, which he denies, but wants the power to disprove, some third 

 person may know to be unfounded, and come forward and disprove for 

 him ? 



But the unfrequent occurrence, or comparative harmlessness of ex parte 

 statements, as they are now published from police offices, forms the 

 least part of the answer to those persons who use the possibihty of such 

 statement as an objection to the practice. The curiosity lies in the cir- 

 cumstance, that any one should name ex parte statement as objectionable, 

 looking to the whole arrangement of judicial proceedings, as they are 

 conducted before all the tribunals in the country. For if the publica- 

 tion of ex parte proceedings be of itself a fault, why is it that we are 

 talking peculiarly about police reports ? If it be a fault — assume that it 

 is one — to publish abroad any facts or statement in a case, the general 

 circumstances of that case, or, at least, the full answer to the particular 

 fact or statement in question, not being promulgated : if this be so, 

 what then is to be said of the piecemeal proceedings of the court of 

 Chancery, which go on for five, ten, twenty, fifty years together ? in 

 speeches commenced in one week and concluded in the next— Plaintiffs' 

 cases heard in the year 1825, and defendants' answers coming in 1827 — 

 facts (fresh ones) stated every day, and sworn to ; and time, almost 

 endless, regularly given to reply to them — judgments (old ones) prayed 

 for (and with swearing enough, too !) and time, quite endless, insuffi- 

 cient to obtain them I — and all this in cases of the most peculiar delicacy 

 — questions of bankruptcy — lunacy — fraud — perjury — validity of mar- 

 riage—legitimacy of birth — and, not untrequently, virtual forgery, — 

 questions not merely affecting the rights and personal property, but most 

 deeply, and \itally, the honour and moral character, of the parties who 

 are concerned in them. 



And — the blindness of this objection against ex parte statements seems 

 perfectly extraordinary ! this state of things is notconfined to the court of 

 Chancery ; the same course prevails precisely in the courts of common 

 law.| What is every motion for a criminal information, every common 

 motion upon affidavit for a new trial, but an ex parte accusation — some- 

 times a very libellous one? — Wliat is the firsthalf of a trial at Nisi Prius, 

 when the court adjourns over to a second day, but an ex parte state- 

 ment ? Wliat is the speech for the defendant in a trial at Nisi Prius, 

 where he docs not call witnesses, but a tissue, nineteen times in 

 twenty, of ex parte abuse, to which there never is to be any answer ? 



