652 Kidd V. Rojial Af/ricultural Society of England. 
important facts of this case. I may liave omitted many things which I 
ought to have said, but I trust to you to take them all into consideration. 
Take both parties into your even hands and weigh them both ; and when you 
hear the libel read, I ask you to find that the Society on this occasion, in 
their honest eflbrt to protect the fair dealer and consumer, have not trespassed 
beyond the rules of law and justice, but merely done that which they have 
abundantly proved their right to do, and are, therefore, entitled to a verdict 
at j'our hands. 
Mr. Seymour : May it please your Lordship, and Gentlemen of the Jury ; the 
day is now far spent and we are at the close of three days of a most important 
and anxious inquiry. I will endeavour therefore, in the course of my obser- 
vations to you, in replying on the part of the Plaintiff so to shorten my speech 
to the best of my power as on the one hand not to do injustice to my client, 
nor yet on the other hand to weary you by any lengthened remarks. 
Gentlemen, you have had your attention called by the cross-examination 
which each of the witnesses has been subjected to by my friend's observations 
and by my own in the course of this case to the main issues between us, and 
rnidoubtedly they are issues of very considerable importance. When I first 
addressed yon, I told you I made no charge against the Council of the Royal 
Agricultural Society or against that distinguished body itself of being anima- 
ted in this matter by any personal spite or indirect motive against my client, 
Mr. Kidd ; but what I did say and what I now repeat is this, that great com- 
panies, whether corporate or otherwise, like individuals who are the employers of 
agents, cannot complain if sometimes they are made responsible for the hasty 
indiscretion of those who are identified with them in the exercise of various 
functions, and if they become responsible in the eye of the law for those who, 
acting without sufficient patience and care, by their language or by the publi- 
city which they have given to a hastily formed opinion, endeavoiu' to under- 
mine or prejudice the character and good fame of others. And, Gentlemen, I 
think I was entitled in my opening observations and I feel I am entitled now 
to complain, that although we did repeatedly ask for it, there was a disposition 
shown on behalf of those who represented the Agricultural Society, not to 
afford lis that frank opportunity of independent test and analysis which at 
least we show by our correspondence we were anxious to resort to. It is all 
very well to say — " We will publish along with the opinion of Dr. Voelcker 
the result of any analysis which may be made by some third party." Why, it 
would be only repeating the mischievous publication of Dr. Voelcker of which 
we complain, and circulating it side by side with the report of the analyst 
employed by my client, thus giving additional publicity to the libel ! Tt is 
all very well to say, let a joint analysis be made, provided Dr. Voelcker takes 
part in it ; but it only becomes a useful analysis so long as Dr. Voelcker 
imites with the man who makes it — if he difter in the mode or conduct of the 
analysis, why, at once, the test fails. Again my fi-iend says, you have no 
right to complain : you had the 8 tons out of which you might have made a 
selection of a sample to have made j'our analysis upon. Now. just see the 
fallacy of that argument ! For it is scarcely two minutes ago that he who 
twitted me with the possession of the 8 tons, as the means of getting an indis- 
putable test, actually put it to you that there is no satisfactory proof that that 
8 tons was part of the same specific article as the 2 tons or the 5 tons which 
went to Mr. Wells's farms. Thus you will see, Gentlemen, how far 1 was 
entitled to make tlie remark which 1 did in the first instance ; and what I 
venture to say is this : the correspondence shows that there has been a too 
great readiness to listen to the complaints made and the theory originally set 
up by Mr. Wells, on the part of the Secretary of the Company ; and that 
which I think strongly corroborates the observation I made, is when he speaks 
<if the position in which he was placed, for in the letter of the 23rd of "March 
