THE GREAT LIBEL CASE—RUBERY v GRANT & SAMPSON.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 251, 1 April 1875, Page 4

THE GREAT LIBEL CASE—RUBERY v GRANT & SAMPSON.

{From the London Times.) The protracted trial of Eubery v Grant and Sampson was closed yesterday evening by a verdict in favor of the first defendant, Grant, but condemning the second defendant, Sampson, in £SOO damages'. The jury have therefore found that there was no conspiracy or joint working on the part of the two defendants to injure the plaintiff, but that the comments of the second defendant in the city article of the Times on the discovery of diamonds and precious stones in Colorado did contain a libel on the plaintiff, Eubery, which was not justified by the evidence produced at the trial. It is admitted on all hands that the so-called " salting" of these diamond-fields was an attempt at a gross fraud on the public in England and the United States, but in the opinion of the jury the language of the defendant Sampson imputed to Eubery an active participation in this fraud, and this imputation was not, in their judgment, established. The Lord Chief Baron rightly directed the attention of the jury to the several issues involved in the trial, but two questions were raised in the course of it upon which the public will fasten as of paramount importance. The first arose between the plaintiff and the conductors of the Times, the second between the conductors of the Times and Mr Sampson. To understand the first we must go back somewhat more than two years, when the accounts were first received of discoveries in Colorado, and the reports of

these discoveries were made the subject of comments in our city article. We reprint these comments in another column, that our readers may turn to them, and, divesting themselves of all that has since happened, form their own judgment of their meaning and value. It is upon these comments that the verdict of £SOO has been given against the second defendant—that is to say, in effect, against the proprietors of this paper. In approaching their consideration, we admit most fully the force of the maxim that no man is a good judge in his own cause, and it must be added that in this instance the learned Chief Baron evidently anticipated the verdict of the iury, and gave it his approbation in advance. We are therefore, in all probability, wrong in hesitating for a moment to recognise the perfect correctness of the judgment against us, yet we may be excused if we present to the public the reasons why we took upon ourselves the entire responsibility of the warnings of our late assistant. In the first place, we venture to say that we cannot discover in the alleged libel anything like a clear imputation against the plaintiff of conscious cooperation in the fraud that was undoubtedly attempted. This point was so little dwelt upon in the late trial that we invite our readers once more to turn to the original comments to appreciate their plain meaning. The alleged diamond discoveries had been triumphantly heralded, and Mr Bubery had been vouched as confirming them. A question at once arose as to the authority of Mr Eubery a question involving his capacity and his honesty in forming a judgment. As we read the original articles they furnished ample reasons for distrusting Mr Eubery's recommendations, but they do not by necessary construction involve any impeachment on his honesty. How far were these cautions substantiated at the trial ? We refer to the charge of the Lord Chief Baron for answer. Mr Eubery was convicted of treason, " but the form of the indictment is not material," in aiding in fitting out a privateer against the United States —- though how an Englishman could be guilty of " treason " in such a case we fail to comprehend. Again, " he rendered what assistance he could " to Harpending in relation to the Lincoln Gold-mining Company, and afterwards with respect to the Pyramid Eange Company, both of which collapsed; and the Lord Chief Baron " believes" he assisted the Emma Mine Company, which has not been successful. He had, again, an interest in the promotion of the Mineral Hill Company, the investors in which have not been fortunate. We take these statements from the Lord Chief Baron's charge, and we should suppose they justified a caution to the public against accepting Mr Eubery as a satisfactory referee in respect of mining adventures. Once more we say, " Look to the extracts in another column, and see whether anything more than this is stated." Mr Eubery was a sanguine person, not given to the scrutiny of golden promises, even after he had been deceived. As between the Times and Mr Eubery, the recent trial gives us no uneasiness. But there was another question raised in it—a question between the conductors of this paper and the late writer of its city article — which we cannot approach without a feeling of profound and unalloyed mortification. The case of the plaintiff was that this attack on his trustworthiness was the result of a conspiracy between Baron Grant and Mr Sampson; and though the jury did not give him a verdict on this point, the evidence extracted from Baron Grant revealed relations between him and our late employe which we have received with mingled astonishment and indignation. It is true that the evidence is that of Baron Grant alone; but, as Mr Sampson had the opportunity, of which he did not avail himself, of subsequently attending and giving his own explanation of the transactions between him and his co-de-fendant, we are justified in taking the Baron's evidence as admitted by him. What, then, did Baron Grant say? It was that in the year 1871—we use the Lord Chief Baron's summary —he had to the extent of £2500 given sums to Mr Sampson as free gifts, to recoup him for losses ; and it must be added that in 1872 he had given him further sums, and could not say whether they did or did not amounc to £SOOO. The explanation of these gifts, volunteered by Baron Grant, is that Mr Sampson had adventured in some speculations on his recommendation, which had proved unsuccessful, and he had thought it fair to indemnify his friend against the losses he had sustained. The Baron's generosity is high-minded, yet it was not indiscriminate. Many persons must have lost money in speculations recommended by him —some who could worse afford to lose it than Mr Sampson — yet of all the unlucky men and women

who had gone through this experience the one he selected to indemnify was the writer of the money articles in the Times, he himself being by profession a man who, month by month and week by week, introduced new ventures to the Stock Exchange. We need say no more. "Whether Baron Grant hoped tor anything, and whether he got anything, we do not inquire. But this much we do feel at liberty, and, indeed, under the necessity to say, that in allowing himself to enter into such relations of obligation to a financial agent Mr Sampson betrayed the unbounded trust that had been reposed in him, and that had any knowledge of these transactions reached us, there would have been long since a change in the authorship of the money articles of the Times. The honor and independence of this paper must ever be above suspicion, and the humiliation we have suffered is hard to bear —a hardship compared with which the damages that have been awarded to Mr Eubery are as a feather in the air. In connection with this, too, we must protest against an observation made by Baron G-rant in his evidence. Baron Grant said that Mr Sampson was the editor of the money articles of the Times, and entitled by reason of his position to allotments in new undertakings. If this means no more than that the city editor of the Times is presumably a person of careful habits and responsible for his engagements, so that when he applies for shares they may be allotted to him, because he may bo trusted to hold them as a bonajido investor, wo do not know that we can quarrel with the statement—the city editor of the Times must have the same liberty of investing his savings as other people; but when Baron Grant goes on to refer to the trouble Mr Sampson has to undergo in his position, we see that there is some ground for the interpretation that has been put on the language of the witness—that he was referring to gratuitous allotments by way of gifts of shares that were quoted at a premium before any allotment had been made. Without imputing this meaning to Baron Grant, we are at liberty to say that if such a suggestion had been made we should regard it as offensive and insulting, and the acceptance of Buch benefits would immediately have determined the connection of Mr Sampson with the Times. In giving in their verdict the jury expressed a hope that no further legal proceedings would be taken in the case. Upon this point we do not at this moment feel free to give an unbiassed opinion. There were questions of law raised which will have to be considered by counsel to whom they must be remitted, but on the general issue we know the difficulty of dealing with a verdict which the presiding judge approves. His brothers on the Bench may hint a doubt as to whether they would have concurred in the verdict given, but they are rarely disposed to interfere under the circumstances so stated. But, as we have said, the verdict is to us a light matter. A barefaced fraud was stopped in its inception by our action, and if in the protection of the public we did any wrong to Mr Eubery, we are ready to recompense him tenfold.