The Court of Queen's Bench on Thursday delivered a some-
what important decision, in the case of 's Lawson v. Labouchere." Mr. Lawson, as all the world knows, is prosecuting Mr. Labouchere for a libel, part of which consisted in calling him .." a disgrace to journalism." Mr. Labouchere, who defended himself before the magistrate, Sir B. Carden, contends that he has a right to cross-examine Mr. Lawson as to the whole management of his paper, the Telegraph, by way of proving that the epithets were justifiable. Sir R. Carden, after hearing a good
'deal of this line of defence, stopped it, that a magistrate need only hear evidence enough to prove reasonable ground for a trial, and Mr. Labouchere applied for a mandamus to compel. him to go on. The mandamus was refused, the Lord Chief Justice, Mr. Justice Lush, and Mr. Justice Manisty holding that the Court, though able to compel a magistrate to exercise jurisdiction, is not able to dictate to him his method of procedure. "The question of the truth of a libel," which, under Lord Campbell's Act, a defendant can now plead, 4‘ does not arise at the stage of the proceedings before a magis- trate," but only on the trial. The duty of the magistrate is confined to sending an accused for trial, or declaring that there is no sufficient case. The effect of this decision is to disable a defendant in a libel case from proving the truth of his state- ments before he is committed, it being useless to prove them before an officer who cannot take that defence into considera- tion. The decision may create hardship in some oases, but it
will greatly relieve the Magistrates' Courts, which were likely to be overburdened with sensational libel actions.
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