THE BULLETIN LIBEL CASE.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2554, 28 May 1881, Page 2

THE BULLETIN LIBEL CASE.

Great interest was felt in Sydney in the action for libel brought against the “Bulletin” by Messrs Moore Bros, the proprietors of the pleasure grounds at Clontarf, a favorite holiday resort on the harbor, a few miles from Sydney. As our readers are already, aware, the jury, by their verdict, awarded plaintiffs one farthing damages. The libel was contained in the following paragraph, which appeared in the Bulletin of Bth January : —“ The scene presented by the motley crowd at Clontarf on Boxing day is one never to be forgotten by an eye-witness. Englishmen have been accussed of taking their pleasure sadly. The lanikin takes his and her pleasure

madly. At Clontarf it was not an excursion—it was an orgie. Large ocean steamers discharged cargo after cargo ot young Australians. Young men, young women, lads, girls, and, still more sad, children thronged the ground, crowded the dancing pavilion (save tho mark) and jostled at the drinking bars. As their blood warmed by dancing, and their passions became inflamed by liquor, the scene within and without the hovels which served for dancing and drinking became indescribable. Horace has no description more revolting. The dancing was that of satyrs and bacchantes, but of satyrs and bacchantes in soiled tweed suits and squalid finery or rumpled gowns that had at first been stiffly white. Depravity of physique thrust itself upon notice. Young Australia was here represented by faces prematurely old—countenances cunning, debased, dully sensual, surmounting figures undergrown, meagre, and angular. There were no manly youths. A six-foot constable towered like a giant amid the seething crowd—a sturdy water police officer appeared a formidable heavy weight among them. And the girls! There was beauty of feature here and there, blurred by traces of intemperance and ravages of excess. But, worse still, amidst the flushed, panting bevy of young girls, clinging in romping abandon to promiscuous partners, were some unworn childish faces with the devil’s mark not yet stamped on their foreheads, lint obviously preparing to have the seal set upon them before another day. Drink and excitement, inherited impulse, and, above all, example and evil associations, were doing their work, and breaking down the last barriers of modesty. As the orgie grew, and drink, desire and jealousy inflamed the participants, young girls commonly and shapely enough to make homes pleasant and parents proud, flow wild-beast fashion at one another, boxed like men and anon scratched like cats. Female children not yet in their teens, romped around with gestures and antics which would have shocked a camp of black gins. The men rarely restrained themselves to a semblance of decency, the females resented no familiarity. The ones were inflamed, the others melted. The devil had broken loose. We looked round for the ministers of God and saw —policemen. We looked for parents and discovered—bawds.”