Page:Nil Durpan.djvu/183

 The Court sat shortly after eleven o'clock, when the rule moved for on Monday last, for arrest of Judgement in the case of The Queen V. James Long, was proceeded with.

Mr. Eglinton, in support of the rule, argued that the indictment disclosed no legal offence on the face of it, and contended that both counts of the indictment were bad in law. He contended that the first count in the indictment, which charged the defandant with libelling Mr. Walter Brett, was not established, and read that portion of the preface to the Nil Durpan, which describes the part taken by the editors of the two daily papers. He took it that no suggestion of libel was implied against Mr. Brett in that passage, and upon that passage alone, he believed, the prosecution in the present case relied. That constituted his objection to the first count. He held that nothing was implied which, in point of law, would constitute libel. He apprehended that it would be quite unnecessary to cite any of the numerous authorities to prove what does or does not constitute libel, because he relied upon the Court being guided in their opinion by the decisions which the authorities had laid down with respect to libel, and he thought that the present case would not come within the meaning of any of those decided cases. The learned Counsel cited, in support, the case of Digby V. Thompson, P. 821, "Pleas of the Crown." In that

N–11