COST OF CROWN PROSECUTIONS FOR LIBEL.
Time Irish Crown Solicitor has made a return of the expenses incurred in the prosecution of Mr. BARRETT. They amount to 7021. 9s. 4d.; a precious item in the Miscellaneous Accounts of the year! Before the money is voted for the payment of this bill, we hope that it will be rigidly taxed. So great an expense was evidently needless. There were no witnesses to be brought from a distance, no lengthy documentary evidence to be procured, no occasion for the services of a numerous band of barristers. But the opportunity was laid hold of, as is usual in such cases, to fee the legal friends of the Government, and purchase influence with time public money. Had time money been well spent, no one would complain. Had it even been expended in an attempt to bring the author of the libel, for which Mr. BARRETT is suffering incarcera- tion, to punishment, many would have thought it well spent. But time prosecution of Mr. Beeman, was one of the most impolitic and weak acts that a Government could commit; and we challenge time most acute lawyer in the land to prove that the public, who pays so dearly for the prosecution, has benefited by it one tittle. For we presume it will hardly be pretended that the opportunity which it afforded Mr. O'Coteeect. of making a most inflammatory speech, and time renewed and extended circulation which it procured for his almost forgotten letter, were of service to the peace of Ireland. We hope that some Member of time House of Commons will move for the costs of time prosecution of time True Sun—a fit pendant to that of time Pilot. Public attention should be called to the mode in which Crown prosecutions are conducted; and that mode should be reformed altogether.
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