THE LONSDALESLANDER CASE. Imprisonment of the Editor of the "World' -Chief Justice Coleridge on Society Journals. [By the Auckland "Star's" London correspondent.] London, April 4.

Te Aroha News, Volume I, Issue 53, 7 June 1884, Page 5

THE LONSDA LES LANDER CASE. Imprisonment of the Editor of the "World ' -Chief Justice Coleridge on Society Journals. [By the Auckland "Star's" London correspondent.] London, April 4.

Next to the death of the Duke of Albany, tho great topic of conversation in society during this last day or two has been the extraordinarily severe and excessive sentence passed by Lord Chief Justice Coleridge on Mr Edmund Yates, the editor of the " World," for libelling the Earl of Lonsdale. The circumstances connected with the slander wore duly detailed to you when tho prosecution was first commenced, but as that is more than a year ago, it may be as well to briefly recapitulate them. J On January 17th, 1883, there appeared in the "World" a paragraph contributed by Lady Stratheden in which it was hintec that a certain well-known peer, a master of foxhounds, encumbered with an ailing wife, had recently eloped from the hunting-field accompanied by a young lady. Though Mr Yates was unaware of the fact, the paragraph was so worded that it could only be read as referring to Lord Lonsdale ; in fact, directly the latter saw it he instructed his solicitors to commence criminal proceedings against the ' ' World. " In the ordinary course of things the trial would have taken place at the Central Criminal I ourt, but the matter was removed to the Queen's Bench on a writ of certiorari granted to the defendant. There a demurrer was raised that the criminal information was bad, on the ground that the fiat of the Public Prosecutor had not been first obtained. On this, judgment was given for the Crown, one Judge out of threo dissenting, and by that decision the defendant was technically convicted of the charge preferred against him. Accordingly, it only remained for the Court to pass judgment. Mr Yates .sat beside his solicitor at a table in the body of the Queen's Bench, and a crowd of actors, artists, authors, and litterateurs overflowed from tho Sh angers' Gallery into every nook and cranny. Most people anticipated the sentence would be severe, for Lord Chief Justice Coleridge has always been known as one of the bitterest opponents of "society" journals. Moreover, the fact of hi^ own venerated name having been irreverently coupled with that of Miss Mary Anderson (who it was said had declined the honour of his hand in marriage) in the "Pall Mall Gazette" and other journals within the week, would not, people felt, make him any the kindlier. When trying a case against " Truth" some time ago, his Lordship told Mr Labouchere that he would rather starve or sweep a gutter than make £5,000 a year, as he did, out of a " Society " journal. No doubt Mr Yates>, like many other people, remembered this observation, and was prepared, when called upon, to stand up and be sentenced for a very manvais quart cVheure. Onlookers v, ere, however, paralysed by the bitter, scathing denunciation which, in the sternest, soletnnest voice, the Chief Justice delivered. Graver and graver grew everybody's faces, and when in the most deliberate tones His Lordship culminated his address by sentencing an honoured and distinguished journalist to the disgrace of four months' imprisonment, a very general feeling of indignation supervened. Thanks to the efforts of Mr Russell (Yates's counsel), sentence was respited for a day or two, and in the meanwhile efforts will be made to get a fine substituted for imprisonment. The idea of locking up the veteran novelist and flaneur, who for ten years has conducted the "World" absolutely blamelessly, seems indeed simply monstrous. I am very far from defending the libel against Lord Lonsdale, and quite think that a heavy fine should be inflicted, but between a money penalty and imprisonment there is surely a •' erreat gulf fixed." I will now quote Lord Coleridge's observations, which are likely to be used in all cases against " society" journals to the end of time. It should, however, be borne in mind that though a great lawyer, the Chief Justice is notoriously bigoted, Calvinistic, and intolerant. lie abhors trivialities, and would do away with three parts of the pleasures and amusements that make life worth living. "This," &aid Lord Coleridge, delivering judgment, "is certainly not the time or the place tor delivering a heavy discourse upon the subject of the liberty of tho press, nor is it in the least degree happily necessary. No one who breathes the English air, or who has ever had his heart touched or his judgment moved by the " Areopagitica " of Milton, will doubt that the free press of this country has been upon the whole an unspeakable blessing, or will desire in any degree to narrow its lawful growth or impede in any manner its lawful exercise. Publio affairs, public men — using the expression of public men in its largest possible sense— literature, art, science, religion — the catalogue might be indefinitely extended — these things are thelawful topics of the press: and of these things the discussion is, and I hope always will be, practically absolutely unfettered. But when we come to private matters very different considerations obvioudy at once arise. Public men, in Eng land at least, must submit to public comment as one of the necessary incidents of their career. But private men, indeed all men, whether public or private, in their private relations, are entitled to have their privacy respected. Why should we have our lives pried into, our movements watched, our dress recorded, our company catalogued, our most private relations dragged into tho light of day — not for any conceivable good to the groat English people, but only to gratify the foolish vanity or the abject curiosity of a small minority of a privileged class? I find it difficult to believe that any man's mind can find pleasure in feeding upon the sort of food with which the columns of this paper now before me are filled. And I can hardly believe that any educated and able gentleman could feel anything but humiliation and self-contempt in having to supply such food. We have, therefore, to deal with a gross personal libel in a paper which lives upon the publication of the most utterly attenuated personalities. It is not the case of a paper of high aims and leal public usef ulnoss committing a breach of the law inconsistent with its general conduct and general policy. We have to deal with a personal libel, occurring in the midst of pages which are indeed not libellous, but which are made up of personalities so trivial that prior to experience one would suppose they could not possibly interest for a single moment, in the faintest degreej any human being. More than this, it seems by the defendant's affidavit that at least one lady of high rank caters, and is paid for catering, to this paper by supplying this personal gossip at a fixed price. This lady of high rank is paid, it seems, two guineas. The proprietor of the paper makes no inquiry, and the slander appears for the gratification, I suppose, of the readers of the " World." The defendant appears to think this makes his case better. To me and to my colleagues it seems to make it worse. To open a sort of lion's mouth, into which all the personal gossip of that which is pleased to call itself society is

I to be shot anonymously at the rate of two guineas a personality, and to take no trouble even to inquire into tho truth of what is so shot in, seems a system perfectly certain to lead, as it does lead, to the manipulation of cruel slanders, and of stories tending to the discomfort and unhappiness of those who are the subjects of them. It has been often said that it is the publisher, and not the inventor of the scandal, who does the real mischief. The defendant, to my mind, adds to, rather than takes away from, his responsibility by the course which he states he has pursued. But, more than this, the defendant has stated that he had no idea that thie paragraph, into the truth of which he was | not at the pains to inquire, applied to the prosecutor, Lord Lonsdale. He has not stated to whom he believed it did apply ; he had not stated that he believed it to apply to any hmnan creature ; so that he shot a bolfc at a venture, at a chance passer-by, whom he had never seen, of whom he had never heard, whom he did not know, and took the chance whether it wounded him cruelly or not. Now, what is to be done? It is a libel unprovoked, unjustified, published in a paper which lives on personality and pays for its manufacture The sentences of courts of justice should, if possible, be an expression of the intelligent opinion of the public, whom in a certain sense they represent ; and over severity takes the shape very often, or appears to take the shape, of personal vengeance — seems to be the outcome of anger rather than of judgment, andl creates re-action, and properly creates, in favour of the over-puuished victim. It is therefore very desirable that we should do nothing which may seem excessive. We have hesitated whether we should inflict a fine. But a fine to a person conducting a successful paper, with a large circulation, is a matter of indifference. It is right, therefore, that his liberty should be interfered with. But his liberty must be interfered with, to no un easonable, harsh, or cruel extent. The sentence of the Court upon the defendant is that he be imprisoned for four months