To The Editor Of The Time...
Sir,-The following remarks will in some degree bear upon your. self, but I am persuadedyou will nevertheless give publicity to them if you think they niay usefully occupy part of your columns at this idle season. The publicity of all udicial proceedings, whether before the Maa. gistrate or the Judge, hfa of late been claimed as a matter of right, even to the extent of publishing reports of such proceedings while actually pending. I do not desire to agitate the question of right, but at all events it is a privilege too recently established to be abused with safety. It IN, however, a subject of daily, gross, and increasing abuse: those who value the privilege as I do, are loudly called upon to check a system by whicl it must be endangered. There are some daily papers (and I instance particularly the Herald) that seem studious of purveying for the public in its sensual appetite (if I may be permitted the expression), for what is coarse, scandalous, aid " blackguardly" in the policet details ; and the magistrates themeelves, probably from a laudable reluctance to excite any discussion which mnay involve the question of right, do in factsanction the indecency by allowing it to pass withoutreproof; I or if reproved, the reporters themselves certainly have not the can- dour to notice it. Every watchhouse squabble, or playhouse broil, is dressed up in colours to make the parties ridiculous-thus giving to respectable persons, whomi perhaps accident may have involved in them, the pain of newspaper notoriety; or affording to the silly youth who Is an habitual offender, the contemptible but dangerous eclat of a" Tom and Jerry" esploit. If *.his were the extent of the mischief, it appears to mc considet- able. To an offender of tbe first class, the exposure is unnecessary; for the sobriety of morning reflection Las been punishmentsufficient. To an offender of the other clescription. publicity is rhe chief grathif- cation he seeks But the evil does no. stop here. The public taste is vitiated-the public feeling is corrupted-a relish for low life and scenes of vulgar ribaldry is acquired ; and a curiosity of a cbaracter entirely new is created, wlhich must be gratified at the expenlse too often of common decency and fair dealing. Some cases are too se- rious and atrocious even for a police-reporterto extract from them mer. riment for hisgreaders. Thenresort ishad tothe yetmoreculpablemea- sureof raking up private scandal,and prvinginto the secrecy ofdoines. tic life, for anecdotes that may satiate ihe impertinent anid eruel ia- quiries of the public. This detestable traffic in domestic miscry was first invented by the Joihn Bull, the pander to everv vicious apnetite -andt, surely, the profits of it, considerable fis they maybe, should have been cheerfully left to the monopoly of its infamous author. A man, of education and fashion, it may be, is accused of mur- der or robbery; certainly it is of impottance that the cir cumstances of the case should be made public; but how is the | world at large at all interested in the biquiry whether he had ahouse at Brighton or atGuildfGrd ?-whetker he played at billiards at the onc place or kept a mistress at the other ? To what can these gossiping ectails lead to that is useful either to the prosecutor or the accused ? On the other band, the cruelty is monstrous. It I may be that the accused is innocent, and the public is at least bound to believe, him so till he is convicted. If innocent, he is restored to society, but under what circumstances of mor- tification and annoyance ? Let atny individual ask himself how much of his private history for a single week he would like to come before the public eye-how he would feel if the transactions of his last twelve hours only were to be placarded on every wall, hawked about tnwn by newsmen, and spread on the breakfast table of every coffee.room-and then he may form rome judgment of the sensations of those who are placed in the unfor. tunate situation to wbich I have alluded: but if by conviction, the wretched criminal becomnes the lawful prey of literary cannibals, are his yet more wretched family to share even his public sufferings, and the widowed femnale to have the veil whiob conceals I her tears roughly torn aside to gratify the malignant gaze of the stranger ? Allow me shortly to advert to the mischief occasioned by the re- action of this feeling; for such is, after all, the innate justice of the English character, that a re-action always floes take place, scarcelv less injurious to the operation of public justice, titan the first excite. ment is prejudicial to the individual. In two cases that recently came before the public, this was strong. Iy exemplified-1 allude of course to the cases of Thurtell and Con. nolly. In the first of these, the offender was at the Outset stigma. tised, as the event justly proved that he deserved to be, as the greatest rufhian that ever graced the Newgate C-alendar; no exertions were spared to crininate him; no expense was grudged to prosecute him; every hand seemed armed for hi3 annihilation and even hia confesaed associates in murder were tolerated and fonale:i to ensure the ascquisitien of evidence sufficient to convict him; but when the tide turned, as of course it did, the cold-blooded murderer vwas con. verted into a hero ! the dastardly villain, that at an advantage stab. bed his victim, was eulogized as a man of courage ! and the rant and bombast of his defence quoted as evidence of " misdirected talent" and " an elevated mind! !" What was this but the re-ac. tion of that public feeling that was conscious of the impropriety of its first display ? again, ii the case of Connolly, a man, bv birth and education entitled to the rank of a gentleman, was guilty of an act of the most barbarous and detestable violence, by which an innocent individual lost his life. In this case, it is true, the public indignation was not so highly excited as in the last, because the transaction was mnixed up with points of law of sufficient importance to divert it; but irn this case, though ceertions seemed to be made to tum the current of Opinion the other way, there was much done before his trial that ought to have been leftundone, and thedetailed history was repeated| to the public of the disgraceful circumstances in which the case originate(i; every daily paper reprinted the discreditable tale of his behaviour at righton, and the subsequent litigation in which lie involved himself. Then, as in Thurtell's case, when conviction followved, popular iseling flowed in his favour; petitions withoutend were got up in his behalf, whom a peotit of law only had acquitted of nulrder; and the very jurymen that convicted him were so carried ,way by the impulse, a to volunteer a confession of perjury that this dangerous maniac night be agai Iletlooseuponsociety4t Inthisin. stance. too, lrs.Connolly and herchild were wantonly produced for stage effect, though the deluded public well knew, that this lady's re. spect for herself nad long separatedher from the society of him whose name she unfortunately bears. I cannot help, in conclusion, expressing mv conviction, that unless some means are promptly adoptcil by the respectable portion of the daily press,to discountenance the present system of reporting, the case ,vilf be taken out of their hands, because the grievance will become too intolerable to cndure. Though my observations are obviously suggested by vour own condact on a recent occasion, I have that reliance on your candour that I think you will make the tateude honarable bv the insertios, of them, unless you have at hantl somie more appropriate remarks on the sante topic. I am. Sir, yours, &c. S. * In the affidavit of Hunt, a person Wilo was Professionally em. toyneed ii nthe afd t nth en ent, (havgvolunteered Hunsltumdehs confessifor , the aesae mb h an,adcn gratulated him upon his safetY t Vide Morning ChronIcle. January 7, tl'ieh Jurhy werc persuaded tb petitionu for a remission of his Sen.I maslughitster bt tfor thSeassutrance of the Judge etha?hte his ehaacOe _ol iiaeth uihet TO THE EDITOR OF THIE TIMES.