SCOTLAND.
About two hundred leading inhabitants of Edinburgh met on Friday last, in the Waterloo Rooms, to express sympathy with the proprietor and editor of the Scotsman and devise a substantial public support. Sir William Gibson Craig occupied the chair. He said that he should have been unwilling to take part in such a meeting, had he not felt that the freedom of the press and the right of public discussion had been not only injured, but deeply endangered, by the late verdict. He thought it desirable that the community should have an opportunity of entering their protest against this decision, lest it should form a precedent in future cases.
" I need not remind you of the deep debt of gratitude we owe to the Scotsman for the advancement of the liberty of this country. I well re- member the time, about forty years ago, when that paper was first esta- blished ; and I recollect the almost amazement with which its first number was received, and how desperate the speculation of its originators was then considered by many. The damages which have been awarded by the Jury in this case, and the heavy expenses that must accrue, fall on one of the -originators of that paper—a gentleman of the most unobtrusive manners and of the gentlest disposition—a man in whom there is no malignity of any kind whatever. Indeed, it is marvellous hovr, with such gentleness of character, he has shown throughout a long life the high moral courage he has at all times exhibited. He was associated in the establishment of that
with his brother, a man exactly of the same character : and of him
is this most affecting anecdote told in Lord Cockburn's Memorials, that when, on his deathbed, he heard the news of the passing of the Re- form Bill, he immediately gave one feeble shout, and almost instantly ex- pired; an anecdote, I think, as touching and as affecting as the lest cry of Mansion when he shouted Victory !' and expired upon the field of battle." For Mr. Russel, the editor, Sir William expressed the highest respect and es- teem. "If such writing as Mr. Russel's is hereafter tote put down, it app- pears to me that, from this time henceforth, not only the Times and Trench, but every newspaper in the country, will either have to close their presses, or be very subdued indeed in their language. It will be impossible in future either to express their contempt for apostasy, or their disgust at the aban- donment of principles, or their indignation at.any coalition, however disre- putable, without the danger of being brought before such a jury as the Scotsman has lately been, and fined in a heavy sum as damages.'
Mr. Shand, advocate, combated an apprehension that the verdict would give rise to a notion that the law in Scotland is different from the law in England; that there is to be no allowance made for the writers in a political journal during an exciting contest at an election, and that there is no distinction to be drawn between criticism on a man's public conduct and on his walk in private life. "I venture to think, when we come to look at the trial more narrowly— though, perhaps, I look on it more with the eye of a lawyer than I should —we will see that no new law whatever has been propounded in this case, and that consequently the danger to be apprehended is far less imminent. The miscarriage has altogether been with the twelve gentlemen who were called on to make up their minds on the case. With regard to the charge of the learned Judge, there was not only no new law propounded, but there was no matter in it whatever that was objectionable, either in a legal point of view or otherwise. Therefore I think that the able and intelligent con- ductors of the public press of Scotland need not be alarmed at this case, as if establishing any new or more stringent law affecting the liberty of the press. The law, I apprehend, is the same in Scotland as in England ; and this meeting, I am sure, sincerely trust that the press of Scotland will not be damped in their ardour by what I would venture to characterize as no- thing but an untoward and unhappy accident, which cannot, in the very nature of things, ever come to be a precedent to guide political trials, if in future they should arise." Mr. Simon Campbell threw some light on the antecedents of Mr. M'Laren.
" This, I think, may be called the second coalition that has been at- tempted in Edinburgh between the Conservatives and the spurious Liberal party. We all recollect the coalition in 1847 to set aside Mr. Macaulay. We all know who was the originator of that combination. At the following election, the same gentleman endeavoured to be Member himself, though he could not get the coalition so complete as he anticipated ; but he did what he could, and he got his deserts. Then at the last election, after the Con- servatives had been at a great loss for a candidate, and had, it might be said, advertised for one—as the party were called upon to reserve their votes for the proper man—a man of that party was at length brought forward, not under the auspices of the Conservative Committee, but under those of our old extreme Liberal friend Mr. M'Laren. This was the third time he had appeared in a very equivocal character; and were they then to expect that the newspaper opposed to him should have been so extremely mealy- mouthed as to be under the fear of rendering him contemptible and ridicu- lous by holding up his conduct to public view ? Why, a plain narrative of his whole public life, from his first divergence from the right path, would have been better calculated than anything else to bring him into contempt and ridicule."
Dr. Renton and Councillor Mossman also addressed the meeting ; and a Committee was appointed to raise a subscription sufficient to defray the damages and costs of the late action. A considerable sum was sub- scribed on the spot, and the subscription-list receives daily additions, comprising men of all ranks, by no means limited to one political party.
A Roman Catholic chapel at Kelso has been destroyed by a mob. Exas- perated by the murder of a young man—by Irishmen, it is said—the popu- lace of the town assembled at night in great numbers. drove away the po- lice, and set fire to the chapel ; which with an adjoining house was burnt down, none of the Kelso people attempting to extinguish the flames.
By the fall of some houses in Leith Wynd, Edinburgh, two persons have been killed and several badly hurt. A child, four years old, had a sur- prising escape : for ten hours it was buried in the ruins, with its head down- wards and its limbs distorted, yet it was recovered, apparently quite unhurt. When it was rescued the emotion of the crowd mamfested itself "in shouts of delight and tears of joy."
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