ANONYMOUS CONTRIBUTIONS. 
403 
we are indebted. Verax will accept our warmest thanks—we 
previously knew' part, we guessed at the rest, and, when the 
fitting time comes, he will see that we were not quite idle. 
Two valuable cases we cannot insert without the requisite au¬ 
thentication ; and two attacks on contributors to our Journal, 
we should despise ourselves if we did insert; for we are per¬ 
fectly assured that neither of the writers would, in his own 
person, have dared to adopt the tone of rude and ungentlemanly 
sarcasm which they have anonymously employed. 
We had intended to have devoted a few pages to the analysis 
of this detestable mode of controversy; but we find in a late 
periodical, and from the pen of that original, eloquent, and 
profound writer, John Galt, so complete and unaswerable an 
exposure of it, that we gladly transcribe his observations. 
The daily newspapers are the most obvious objects of our 
animadversion, and, perhaps, they are so necessarily ; for how¬ 
ever honourable and candid the conductors may be individually, 
it is not to be denied that they are constantly in the practice of 
committing such gross libels as expose them to a greater num¬ 
ber of prosecutions than any other class in the kingdom. With¬ 
out, therefore, breaking any rule of charity, it may be assumed 
that the editors of the daily newspapers are prone to this offence: 
we do not say that they are naturally more so than the generality 
of men, but by the rule by which offences are estimated, viz. 
the number of convictions in proportion to the whole number of 
the accused, we say that this body of persons is, as far as libels 
are criminal, culprits in the highest degree. No doubt, this 
arises from their participation in the blimtness of feeling that 
disgraces the public, and the impunity with which malice may 
anonymously gratify its snakes. 
“ They are also led on by the warmth of party animosity to treat 
their adversaries with a degree of contumely, which they no more 
durst in ordinary company than play the sycophant to a tiger. 
They ever forget, that the mischief of their unguarded pen is 
done before the victim can possibly hear of it. Moreover, too, 
in those journals which are declaredly party, their columns are 
open to all of that party; and, as the law stands at present, the 
