Seldom have the interests of a defendant been watched with
such deep sympathy as that with which the public followed the evidence for Lord Gladstone in the libel action that ended last week. Lord Gladstone, with Idiom was associated his brother, Mr. Henry Gladstone, in defending the memory of his father had called Captain Peter Wright a liar, a coward and a foul fellow. The jury by its verdict expressed the opinion that this was not an overstatement. Obviously Lord Gladstone in writing the letter which contained these words deliber- ately went out of his way to force Captain Wright into Court. He wrote that to which no one with a shred of self-respect or with any professional reputation worth defending could possibly submit. .Although Captain Wright came into Court there was never the least prospect that he could substantiate his accusation against Mr. Gladstone of being a man of loose morals. His evidence was a farrago of tittle-tattle such as has hardly ever been inflicted on a Court of Law. The jury, as though a mere verdict against him were not pointed enough, added a special rider that Mr. Gladstone's high moral character had been completely vindicated. The Judge, too, said that Captain Wright's preposterous stories had been riven to the dust." It may be hoped that Lord Glad- stone's spirited and filial action (which has won for him the admiration of every decent person) together with the recent result of the trial of Mr. Hesketh Pearson will check the disreputable trade in false or salacious memoirs.
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