Mr. Bradlaugh has failed to punish Mr. Newdegate for insti-
gating the actions to recover penalties from him for voting in the House of Commons. That Mr. Newdegate guaranteed the nominal prosecutor in those actions is not denied, and the Member for Northampton tried to prosecute him under the old statute of maintenance. Under that statute—which was passed under Richard 1I., and was, we imagine, from its language, intended solely to prevent the great officials from getting Up actions against wealthy men, and their own enemies—Mr. Newdegate would have been liable to imprisonment and fine. Mr. Vaughan, however, the sit- ting magistrate at Bow Street, rejected the application, holding, first, that the Act was obsolete ; and secondly, that Mr. Newdegate came within the protecting clause in the statute itself. Mr. Newdegate, as a Member of the House of Commons, had, he decided, a personal interest in seeing a law intended to prote3t the House of Commons carried out. It is a curious fact that this law, which has never been carried into effect, survives in the recollection of Englishmen as many a useful and working law does not. They have an idea that a frivolous or vexatious suit must be punishable somehow, and as it is not, except through costs, they fall back upon this sold Act.
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