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Evening Star, Issue 3514, 28 May 1874, Page 2

Without at present venturing to give any very decided opinion as to whether Mr Watt is persecuting Mr Stead, or the latter is persecuting the former, we may say that a law which allows one man to keep another in gaol for more than a year for no crime of any kind, but merely on a question of “costs,” is a monstrous one, and must be done away with, Jb js said that Stead is being kept in gaol to proyept him from harassing the Sheriff by means of tious lawsuits. That is to say, he is really a prisont.:- not for any harm that he has done, but for some harm that he might do. This is just the principle on which lettres de cachet were issued by the Bourbons before the Revolution. A man might be suspected by a person in power of having an intention to thwart hjs plans, or might be in some way a nuisance to him, yet if he had committed no crime, no indictable offence, he could not be brought to trial and disposed of in that way. The Co;u'fc favorite would, therefore, make use of one of the lettres de cachet granted by the King, whisk the inconvenient person away to the Bastille, and keep him there for twenty years or so: in fact, till he happened to remember that the man was no longer likely to prove an inconvenience to him. Our readers will see that the two cases are precisely similar; in both legal measures are used, (for the lettres de cachet had undoubtedly become quite legal through long, custom,) and in both the

persons imprisoned are innocent of any actual offence—they are kept in prison because they may, if at large, possibly do harm to some one person. It will be understood that we here pass no decided opinion on Mr Watt’s conduct or on that of his opponent. We deal only with the principle involved in the fact that in a civilized country one man may, through what is at best but a legal quibble, get such command over the personal liberty of another as to be able to shut him up in gaol for a period which represents no insignificant portion of an average human life. It is due to Mr Watt, however, that we should express our firm belief that when the whole matter has been thoroughly gone into, it will turn out that he°has been actually forced into the line of conduct which he has adopted by that other great defect in the law—pointed out by Mr Stout in the Provincial Council yesterday—which “allows a man without means to bring as many actions as he chooses against another man, involving him in all sorts of expenses, while- the latter has no remedy.” Stead has been very badly used, but the law has been his oppressor, we are inclined to think, and that in two ways. First, it induced him to seek his remedy for some real or fancied grievance by harassing MiWatt. Then it has caused him to be imprisoned for a long period for doing what he legally had a perfect right to do. Mr Watt has seemed to act harshly in this matter ; but he has been so long and so favorably known to this community that he may fairly ask his fellow-citizens to suspend their judgments awhile, at all events till his case is as fully before the public as is that of Stead.