Prisoner for Blasphemy Part 5

Mr. Justice North: What are you going to refer to it for?

Mr. Foote: I am going to refer to one page of it, my lord.

Mr. Justice North: What for?

Mr. Foote: To show that identical views to those expressed in the cheap paper before the court are expressed in expensive volumes.

Mr. Justice North: I shall not hear anything of that sort. I am not trying the question, nor are the jury, whether the views expressed by other persons are sound or right. The question is whether you are guilty of a blasphemous libel. I shall direct them that it will be for them to say whether the facts are proved in this case.

Mr. Foote: I will call your attention, my lord, to the remarks of Lord Justice c.o.c.kburn in a similar case.

Mr. Justice North: I will hear anything relevant to the subject.

My reason for asking you was to find out whether you were going to quote a law book.

Mr. Foote: I will quote a verbatim report.

Mr. Justice North: I can hear that.

Mr. Foote: It is the case against Charles Bradlaugh and Annie Besant.

Mr. Justice North: By whom is your report published?

Mr. Foote: It is a verbatim report published by the Freethought Publishing Company--the shorthand notes of the full proceedings, with the cross-examination and the judgment of the court.

Mr. Justice North: There is no evidence of that. Did you hear it?

Mr. Foote: I did not personally hear it, but my co-defendants did.

Mr. Justice North: I will hear you state anything you suggest as being said by Lord Chief Justice c.o.c.kburn.

Mr. Foote: Mrs. Besant was about to read a pa.s.sage from 'Tristram Shandy'----

Mr. Justice North: You have not proved the publication.

Mr. Foote: Quite so, my lord; but although this is not formal evidence, and only the report of a case, I thought your lordship would not object to hear it.

[Mr. Foote here handed in a copy of the report to the judge, and pointed out that the Lord Chief Justice had said he could not prevent Mrs. Besant from committing a pa.s.sage to memory, or from reading books as if reciting from memory].

Mr. Justice North: I will allow you to go on, either quoting from memory or reading from the book; but I cannot go into the question of whether this is right or not.

Mr. Foote: I am not proposing that. I am only going to show that opinions like those expressed here extensively prevail.

Mr. Justice North: That is not the question at all. If they extensively prevail, so much the worse. What somebody else has said, whoever that person may be, cannot affect the question in this case.

Mr. Foote: But, my lord, might it not affect the question of whether a jury might not themselves, by an adverse verdict, be far more contributing to a breach of the peace than the publication on which they are asked to adjudicate?

Mr. Justice North: I think not, and it shall not do so if I can help it. It is a mere waste of time to attempt to justify anything that has been said in the alleged libel by showing that someone else has said the same thing.

Mr. Foote: In all trials the same process has been allowed.

Mr. Justice North: It will not be allowed on this occasion.

Mr. Foote: If your lordship will pardon me for calling attention to the famous case of the King against William Hone, I would point out that there Hone read extracts to the jury.

Mr. Justice North: Very possibly it might have been relevant in that case.

Mr. Foote: But, my lord, it was precisely a similar case--it was a case of blasphemous libel. Lord Ellenborough sat on the bench.

Mr. Justice North: Possibly.

Mr. Foote: And Lord Ellenborough allowed Mr. Hone to read what he considered justificatory of his own publication. The same thing occurred in the case of the Queen against Bradlaugh and Besant.

Mr. Justice North: We have nothing to do to-day with the question whether any author has taken the views which are taken in these libels, whoever the author was.

Mr. Foote: Does your lordship mean that I am to go on reading or not?

Mr. Justice North: Go on with your address to the jury, sir; that's what I wish you to do. But you cannot do what you were about to do--refer to the book you mentioned for any such purpose as you indicated.

Mr. Foote: I hope your lordship does not misunderstand me. I am simply defending myself against a very grave charge under an old law.

Mr. Justice North: Go on, go on, Foote. I know that. Go on with your address.

Mr. Foote: Your lordship, these questions are part of my address.

Gentlemen (turning to the jury), no less a person than a brother of one of our most distinguished judges has said----

Mr. Justice North: Now, again, I cannot have you quoting books not in evidence, for the sake of putting before the jury the matters they state. The pa.s.sage you referred to is one in which the Lord Chief Justice pointed out that that could not be done.

Mr. Foote: But the action, my lord, of the Lord Chief Justice did not put a stop to the reading. He said he would allow Mrs. Besant to quote any pa.s.sage as a part of her address.

Mr. Justice North: Go on.

Mr. Foote: No less a person than the brother of one of our most learned----

Mr. Justice North: Now did I not tell you that you could not do that?

Mr. Foote: Will your lordship give me a most distinct ruling in this case?

Mr. Justice North: I am ruling that you cannot do what you are trying to do now.

Mr. Foote: I am sorry, my lord, I cannot understand.

Mr. Justice North: I am sorry for it. I have tried to make myself clear.

Mr. Foote: Does your lordship mean that I am not to read from anything to show justification of the libel?

Mr. Justice North: There is no justification in the case. The question the jury have to decide is whether you, and the persons present with you, are guilty of a libel or not. For that purpose they will have to consider whether the matters in question are a libel. If so, they will have also to consider whether you and the other defendants are guilty of having published it.

If they think it a libel, and that you have published it, they will have answered the only two questions they will have to put to themselves.

Mr. Foote: My lord, in an ordinary libel case justification can be shown.