On Saturday, judgment was given in the Eastbourne riot case
by the Court of Crown Cases Reserved. The Court, consisting of Mr. Justice Hawkins, who originally tried the case, and four other Judges, declared that the verdict of the jury which found the eight Salvationists guilty of unlawful assembly, could not be supported, and the conviction is there- fore set aside. Mr. Justice Hawkins, in delivering judgment for himself and his brethren, declared that the prisoners had done nothing "which in the least degree could have tended to provoke any human being to suppose that they intended a breach of the peace." "It would be impossible," said Mr. Justice Hawkins, "to conceive of a more peaceable body of men. Then these men, quietly walking along with their instruments, were attacked by the crowd without the least provocation or excuse." It was not essential to show an original intention to disturb the peace. We have always been against the general action of the Salvation Army in Eastbourne, believing such action to be illegal. That, how- ever, does not make our satisfaction less at the quashing of a particular illegal conviction. We want the law obeyed, whether it is for or against our own notions.
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