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them to hear as for him to repeat them;-passages so abominable, that, except certain parts of that infamous work with the consideration of which the Court had for these three days past been occupied, he remembered not to have read or heard of any thing so remarkable for wickedness and atrocity. The learned gentleman then proceeded to read various passages reflecting either upon certain doctrines of Christianity, or upon the character of its founder; and after a number of remarks in reprobation of the work and of the conduct of the defendant, he ended by express ing his confidence that the jury by their verdict of condemnation would contribute to stem that torrent of infidelity which threatened to carry away all our institutions, all our laws, and with them all our happiness.

A witness was then brought, who proved the purchase of the work of the defendant in person. Mr. Carlisle afterwards spoke at some length in his own defence. "The learned gentleman, he said, has stated that this was a prosecution instituted by the Society for the Suppression of Vice. Until last night, gentlemen, I never knew who my prosecutors were; nor do I believe I should then have become acquainted with their name but for the verdict of yesterday. He has told you that the gentlemen of this society have conferred many benefits on the country; and, in some instances, I admit it; but they have carried their inquisitorial conduct too far. In preventing the sale of obscene books and prints, I think the society

has acted laudably, as these are demoralizing to all persons, of all ages, and of both sexes. But are they justified in going so far as to become censors of the press, and to judge of books on matters of opinion? Gentlemen, I am no hypocrite; I avow myself a Deist, believing in one God, independent of books or the opinions of others. This, it must be admitted, is, in the abstract, a matter of opinion only. If, gentlemen, your religious opinions are different from mine, you will doubtless disapprove and condemn them. By the laws of this country, a foreigner is entitled to have one half of the jury his countrymen, or at least of foreigners; but it is not so with me; I am to be tried by a jury of opinions opposite to my own, and I am not allowed to justify mine. How far it is necessary that books should be shielded from examination by law, or that courts of justice should take cognizance of such an examination, and not allow the defendant to state his reasons, I will not pretend to determine. The learned gentleman has attempted to screen the Attorney-general from the charge I made against him of wishing to excite prejudices against me; but he has failed. He has also stated, that the book I am charged with publishing was purchased at the office of The Republican and Deist. Now, gentlemen, this is a falsehood, as my shop bore no such designation until long after this indictment was laid against me. He calls me an offender; this, at least, was not decent in your presence; for although the indictment

charges

charges me with an offence, yet I ought not to be branded as an offender until I have entered into that defence of my conduct which I am this day determined to do; and no other judge but your selves, gentlemen, shall interrupt me; and if I am told by you that I shall not make such defence, then will the verdict you may give against me be irregular and impure. But the learned gentleman has gone further, and compared the publication of a book as equal in offence to that of murder, theft, or pocket-picking, Is there the slightest analogy? A book is submitted to the public, to be purchased by them or not, at their option; and if they read it, they may approve or discard it. They are not deprived of any thing by the act except the price of the book, and this was on their part voluntary."

After pleading, that the act by which impugners of the Trinity were relieved from responsibility, ought to protect him also, the defendant proceeded to read and comment upon the work in question. After listening for some time to passages which gave general offence, the jury at length expressed, through their foreman, their unanimous opinion that Mr. Carlisle was pursuing a very improper mode of defence; an intimation which silenced him.

The Lord Chief Justice, after laying down the law to the jury, observed, that as the indictment charged malicious intention, it was necessary to prove that; and it was to be asked if it had resulted from the defendant's open avowal. The sole question for their consideration was, whether

malicious intention was proved or

not.

The jury consulted about two minutes, and then returned a verdict of Guilty without retiring from the box.

On November 16th, the Attorney general prayed the judg. ment of the Court on Richard Carlisle; when an affidavit was put in stating the number of copies of Paine's Age of Reason sold by him to be 3,000, at half a guinea a copy.

After some legal objections to the conviction had been urged by Mr. Denman, but over-ruled by the Court; and after the defendant had spoken once more in his own behalf, and the Attorneygeneral had replied, judgment was pronounced by Mr. Justice Bayley in the following words :"The sentence of the Court upon you, Richard Carlisle, is, that for the first offence of which you have been found guilty, the publication of Paine's Age of Reason, you pay a fine to the King of 1,000l. and be imprisoned for two years in the county gaol of Dorset, in the town of Dorchester; and that for the second offence, the publication of Palmer's Principles of Nature, you pay a further fine to the King of 500l.; and be further imprisoned for one year in the said gaol at Dorchester. And that you be further imprisoned until those fines are paid, and also until you give security, yourself in the sum of 1,000l. and two others in the sum of 100. each, that you be of the peace and good behaviour for the term of your natural life.

COURT

COURT OF KING'S BENCH, SER

JEANT'S INN, OCT. 29.

Man v. Davis (Clerk).-This was a case wherein a pauper was removed from one parish and delivered to the officers of another, in Suffolk. At the latter place he was anxious to procure employment, it being harvest time. He remained there for two months without being chargeable, or likely to become so; during which period no objection was taken to his residence in the parish; but at the expiration of that time he was committed a second time (having been before punished for the same offence) to Bury gaol by defendant, as an idle and disorderly person, who had "unlawfully" returned to a parish from whence he had been already once legally transferred. It appeared that on the occasion of the return in question, he was provided with a letter from two of the principal inhabitants of his own parish, acknowledging him for a parishioner, and expressing their regret at the unnecessary harshness with which he had been treated in the other. It was in consequence of his unlawful imprisonment in Bury gaol that the present action was brought.

Mr. Robinson observed, that the formal question in this case was, whether the conviction was any legal justification of the defendant? But there was another also;-whether a man who had been once removed from his parish became criminal by the mere naked fact of returning to it, without any thing else ;-whether that was an act of vagrancy? If he could show their lordships

that he did not, and that this was not enough to constitute such an act, he flattered himself his motion would lie. Now he should contend that the magistrate had no jurisdiction, because he had acted upon an information which did not state any crime as against the plaintiff. The mere return of a pauper after the execution of an order of removal was not an act of vagrancy. The information in question was founded on the wellknown statute of 17 George 2nd, and it was most material to observe that that statute neither defined nor created the offence charged in the information. It was of the more consequence to remark this, because had the words of that act first mentioned and described the offence, it would have been sufficient to have referred to it in the information. But what did it do? It provided that all persons who should "unlawfully" return to such parish, place, &c. after being removed from thence, without bringing a certain certificate, properly signed, from the place or parish whence they so returned, should be deemed idle and disorderly persons, and punished accordingly. It was therefore to be inferred, from the word "unlawfully," that it was not the intention of the legislature to declare the mere and single act of returning unlawful. That very word indeed implied, that there might be a lawful mode of performing the act he spoke of.

Their lordships here suggested, that the very words of the statute, such as they were, being transcribed into the information, it was not possible for them to

alter

alter them. Should not this man, to have raised the learned counsel's points, have offered to the magistrate at the time such circumstances as might have proved that the proceedings against him were not legal? It did not appear that he had then urged what would have been, no doubt, sufficient to prevent their taking place.

Mr. Robinson, in continuation, said, that Mr. Justice Buller had already laid it down, that if the statute defined the offence, then it was correct and sufficient to refer to it in the information; but if it did not, or spoke of it only relatively or in general terms, then the reference was not enough. So, in an action under the Gambling act, the judges held, that the pleading of the words of the statute, "unlawfully gaming," was not a good plea. The specific facts ought, they said, to have been shown, in order that they might know what were unlawful games. In the case of Molten and Jennings (Cook's Reports, 642), lord chief justice Eyre held, that if the oaths had not been specified the information would have been void.

The lord chief justice observed, that there was this distinction to be made between the case before them and those which had been cited-that here it would be matter of extreme hardship if a pauper, after being examined before the magistrate and refusing to state the grounds of his return, should, after conviction, be allowed to say, "I can bring forward facts to prove an illegal commitment, and will now state them, though I declined to do so before."

Their lordships concurred in observing that this was very possibly a case of extreme hardship individually on the plaintiff; but under the circumstances of the case, they could not possibly pronounce against the magistrate, who, acting on the information, had only done, and by no means exceeded, his duty. If the plaintiff could get at the person who caused his commitment in the first instance, they should be very glad; because they believed this to be only one of the ten thousand cases which must be perpetually occurring so long as the present poor-laws remained in operation. If they were to pronounce that an action would lie against the magistrate, they might be punishing an innocent man. He appeared to have acted rightly. But very possibly the churchwardens and parish officers (and on the face of the pleadings it seemed they had) acted most im properly and harshly to the plaintiff, whom they were instrumental in depriving of work in the middle of harvest, and who was not likely to become chargeable to them. The magistrate, however, could not be held to have proceeded illegally.

KING'S BENCH.
Inquest at Oldham.

The King v. Joseph Taylor and John Earnshaw. Mr. Scarlett rose and said, he was instructed to move for a rule to show cause why a criminal information should not be filed against Joseph Taylor and John Earnshaw. He made this motion upon the affidavits of John Mellor, constable at Old

ham;

ham; Ferrand, one of the coroners of the county of Lancaster, and another: the ground of it was, an attempt to influence improperly the minds of a jury assembled at Oldham to hold an inquest upon the. body of John Lees. The jury were summoned for the 8th of September, but the coroner not being able to return to Oldham from the Lancaster assizes, an adjournment took place. On his arrival however he found a great multitude assembled, who appeared to take a great interest in the proceeding, and to be extremely desirous that the jury should come to the same conclusion as they had already drawn. Mr. Ferrand's affidavit went on to state, that the inquest continued many days, and that at length, fearing from the temper evinced in the town, that some disturbance might take place, he adjourned it to Manchester, where the police was more vigilant and active. One of the parties, Earnshaw, was a surgeon, and had attended to give evidence on the subject matter of the inquiry. He had attended the deceased in his medical capacity, but being a Quaker he declined taking an oath, and could not therefore be examined.

Mr. Justice Bayley asked whether any verdict had been found? Mr. Scarlett replied, that it was difficult to strip themselves of the effect of public rancour, but that it did not appear by these affidavits whether a verdict had or had not been found.

Mr. Justice Bayley observed, that his motive for asking the question was, a doubt whether such an application as the present

might not have an influence on the verdict; and whether, in that view, the Court ought to interfere?

Mr. Scarlett said he would shortly state the ground of his motion. Mr. Earnshaw's evidence had been rejected for the reasons before stated; but it appeared that he and Taylor had taken means to circulate in the form of a written statement among the jurors, that which he had not given upon oath. He would not disclose the contents of this paper at present, but merely add, that Mr. Cox, a surgeon, had given evidence as to the cause of Lees's death, and the remarks in the written statement differed from that evidence. One of the affidavits stated that four or five of the jurors had received copies, one of which was shown to the coroner.

The Lord Chief Justice asked, whether it appeared from whom they received them.

Mr. Scarlett replied, that in Mellor's affidavit it was sworn that Taylor admitted to him the fact of the papers being left at his house without any direction, but that, conceiving them to be so intended, he had distributed some of them among the jury. Mr. Ferrand stated, that one of the jury put a copy into his hands; that he made no observation at the time, but finding afterwards that more were distributed, he told the jury that it was their duty to deliver them to him; they made no answer, but it appeared that all, except one named Wolfanden, had received copies, which were left at their respective houses. The learned gentleman observed,

that

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