18 FEBRUARY 1928, Page 3

The Lord Chief Justice summed up a libel case this

week in a more vigorous and less coldly judicial manner than we should have expected. But very naturally his wrath was stirred by a case in which it appeared to him that an adventurer had been fairly accused by a newspaper, of being party to a hoax, a sham highway robbery, staged in order to advertise the actors and a business concern. Such people, conscious that they merit no public fame, will go to any length to obtain it by self-advertisement. Reticence and modesty are, as we know, unfashionable virtues to-day, and these people have no self-respect, and do not, apparently, shrink even from the risk of perjury in the Courts in their crazy and ultimately wicked pursuit of publicity.

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