Snt,—It is well to have Mr. Cozens-Hardy's protest, but, after
what has appeared in other papers, The Spectator's offence may be considered negligible. Several months ago the London correspondence of a great provincial daily included such violent abuse of one of the present accused as would have brought the writer to book for contempt of Court, had the trial been held in England. Certain well-known cartoons also are, at the time, just as objectionable.
If the prisoners are to be treated as guilty, why have a trial? Without sympathising with them, though they are already enduring prolonged punishment, we may think that, once the trial has begun before an English judge, there should be no public comment until a verdict is given and sentence pronounced. Any baiting of prisoners in the dock is quite un-English and, as the lawyers say, repugnant to English
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