TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE PROSECUTIONS FOR. LIBEL.
THE Globe, which seldom goes wrong in its judgments of men and things, observes on the pending prosecutions of the Lord CHANCELLOR against the Journal and the Atlas, that no histanee had occurred in which those who persisted in neglecting the attacks of newspaper writers had not had reason ultimately to congratulate themselves on their abstinence. We do not think that we should be justified in Condemning all libel prosecutions on that account ; but, with our respectable contemporary, we may question their policy while we admit their justice. The provocation offered to the noble Lord, in the twci, cases which he has selected, was not light. In the one he is charged by implication with receiving a large sum as the price of his influence in a particular case ; in the other with habitual comiption in the sale of those livings of which he is virtute officil the patron. Mr. ALEXANDER, one a the parties eliminated, does indeed assert on oath that he did not intend his serio-comic allegations to apply to the CHAN-, CELLOR ; and we should be far from insinuating, after such a denial; that he did. But the sense of a paragraph is, accordino." to all ordi-. nary rules of interpretation, to be sought, not in the heart of the writer, which can be seen only by himself, but in the plain meaning of the words that form it. Taking, however, the alleged libel of the Journal in the sense put upon it by the CHANCELLOR, thus much may In said in common fairness, that it is a charge on the CHANCELLOR. alone. The charge is false, we are bound to believe ; but the writer does not add unmanliness to falsehood, by dragging before the public an honourable and respected lady, in order, through her side, to wound the object of his political virulence. There is another plea on behalf of the Journal which will be variously estimated : lawyers commonly set it up as an aggravation, but we confess that to us, who look to the essentials more than to the forms and plausibilities of things, it appears to be a very considerable palliation of the offences The Journal is what is termed a violent paper: its ordinary tone is warm ; its ordinary language strong; its ordinary reasoning rather for victory than truth. These are faults, in our estimation; but they are plain, obvious, and understood faults : they may, injure the paper, but its readers they can hardly injure, for every one makes allowance for them. Add to this, that the Journal is strenuously—furiously, we might say—opposed to the politics of the noble Lord ; and therefore, whatever it may happen to say against him is received by the public cum gram We say we look on these circumstances as palliations in the Journal, because they diminish its claims to belief, and thus furnish a means of neutralizing the errors, wilful or witless, of its statements. The Atlas has no such excuses to plead. The allusion to Lady LYNDHURST in a rumour, which nothing but the official station of her noble husband could for a moment justify a paper in publishing, was utterly uncalled for. Such an Attack on a female, no man, whatever be his politics or temper, can for a moment view without reprobation. The Atlas is a quiet, smooth, " cannie" journal; its course is marked by no extravagancies ; itkeeps an even tenor of thought, language, and argument, at all times. It calls itself neutral. Its politics, where they have appeared, are the same as those of the CHANCELLOR; it is pro-Catholic, pro-free-trade, pro-metallic-currency, pro-every-thing, moderately, that the Cabinet is. It was there fore reasonable to suppose that an attack on one of the highest officers of the state would not be made by such a journal without the strongest grounds possible. We listened to the declamation of the Journal with such a doubting ear as we listen to the ivrsa g-ileosipra of a mob orator at a general election ; while the annunciations of the Goliah of the Weeklies are received with the same assurance as those of a sober dealer in prunes and raisins, who would as little dream of circulating his prosy tale without due investigation of its truth, as he would of circulating a bill without inquiring into the authenticity of the signatures of the drawer and acceptor. A word Or two for Sir JAMES SCARLETT. We do not blame the Attorney-General that he takes a lawyers view of the delinquencies which he is called on to visit: we rather admire the boldness which he displays in expressing it, well knowing that his words are to be rigidly watched and not over charitably interpreted. What we blame is, the illogical nature of the Attorney-General's reasonings. He has caught one member of our large fraternity napping, and he concludes that the whole are equally somnolent. " See," says he, "what men these are that give and take away fame : mark the writers that bandy about the characters of the great and the noble in the way of business." Now what would Sir JAMES say of an editor who should ground on the— we shall not say suspected, but—proved rascality of an attorney, 1 sweeping charge against the bar and the bench, stuff gowns and silk gowns, plain wigs and powdered ? Lord BACON'S rule is that no general inference can be legitimatelymade but on an induction of all the particulars. Sir JAMES makes his general conclusion on an induction of two particulars only. Even the cases from which his conclusion is drawn are incomplete. Mr. ALEXANDER and Mr. BELL are defendants ; they are bound to speak the truth ; so is Sir JAMES SCARLETT but they are not bound to speak further than goes to establish their exculpation, any more than he is bound to speak further than goes to establish their conviction. These gentlemen are not witnesses more than Sir JAMES is. They contend for themselves ; he contends for his client : the moral obligation, to state nothing but what is believed to be true, is as strong on the Attorney-General as on the parties accused, and we should be sorry to imagine that it was less felt. But how extremely absurd would it be to 'attempt to make out a general charge of wilful falsehood against all the pleaders in the empire, be cause Sir JAMES SCARLETT, or Mr. BROUGHAM, Or Mr. A LOBItsON, in pleading for the LORD CHANCELLOR, said more than all the three were capable of proving?
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