90 
betts’s metallic capsules. 
of the suit. A remedy against those who supplied the goods ! But it would be 
necessary first to know what goods the proceedings relate to, and this is just the 
sort of information that the bills in Chancery do not disclose. Defendants 
are accused of using or selling metallic capsules made by Mr. Betts’s process, 
and not of his manufacture ; but they are left to guess when, where, and how 
the offence was committed. Was it the bottle of Vichy water sold the other day, 
or the bottle of eau de Cologne unsuspectingly procured specially for a very par¬ 
ticular customer; or was it a bottle of Price’s glycerine, or Rimmel’s toilet 
vinegar, or Burnett’s disinfecting fluid; or was it some choice anchovy paste, 
or French mustard, imported from abroad? These are questions which a de¬ 
fendant finds it difficult to decide, and the plaintiff is not disposed to help him. 
You have your remedy against those who supplied you with the goods ; so also 
has Mr. Betts, and if they are guilty parties he would be justified in proceed¬ 
ing against them ; but it is hardly to be expected that you should undertake a 
number of speculative actions to supply the information required for Mr. 
Betts. If the defendants in those Chancery suits were fond of law, they 
might seek compensation for the annoyance and expense of such proceed¬ 
ings by each engaging in half-a-dozen or a dozen speculative actions in the 
Queen’s Bench or Court of Exchequer, which would no doubt be very good for 
the lawyers. 
Such a method of meeting the case, although it has in two or three instances 
been suggested as the proper course, would have been most uncongenial and in¬ 
supportable to the class of men who constitute the defence Committee and the 
defendants to the pending suits. The Committee have adopted the more judi¬ 
cious course of disclaiming any intention to infringe Mr. Betts’s patent, or 
any knowledge of such an infringement having been involved in the acts of 
which defendants are accused. They have appealed to Mr. Betts’s sense of justice, 
in claiming to be exonerated from any guilty knowledge, or from being visited 
with proceedings which they feel to be unmerited. It should be understood 
that the Committee and those in whose interest they act, consist entirely 
of such dealers in capsuled articles as have never knowingly infringed Mr. 
Betts’s patent. Their object is not, and has not been, to encourage those who 
would deprive a patentee of his legal rights, or to screen the guilty from merited 
punishment, but to protect themselves and others similarly circumstanced, from 
proceedings which they consider to be uncalled for, unjust, and oppressive. For 
this purpose a fund has been established, called the “ Guaranteed Defence 
Fund,” to which there are a large number of contributors of sums ranging 
from £100 to £5 or less; the object of the fund being to meet the necessary 
expenses involved in the defence or protection of those dealers in capsuled 
articles, against whom proceedings are, or may be, instituted, but who, if 
offenders at all, have only been so unwittingly or unintentionally. The subscri¬ 
bers to the fund will only be called upon to contribute such an amount as 
may be required, in sums proportional to those set against their names. It 
is, of course, hoped that no further legal proceedings will be rendered necessary. 
Everything that could be consistently done, has been done, with the view of 
