9 DECEMBER 1865, Page 2

Miss Longworth's action for libel against the Saturday Review has

ended in a verdict for the defendant ; the lady's counsel immediately moved for a new trial, so that the case is hardly concluded, but some discussion is going on as to the morale of the matter. The question seems to be whether it is fair in a news- paper to pronounce a lady immodest on the evidence of her own letters produced in court at a public trial. We should say if the letters are immodest that it is, and if not, not, and the fact must be left, like everything of the kind, for a jury to decide. It is, however, incumbent on every journalist to be more careful in making this comment than any other, because for any woman to be compelled to prove that she is modest is an injury in itself of the most serious kind. Such comment, moreover, should be invariably grave, and not seasoned with the sort of allusions used in the Longworth case. It has always appeared to us that there is one simple rule of manners, we do not say of law, for every journalist. He has a right to say anything he would say if he were speaking openly in Parliament instead of writing, no more, but also no less.