LONDON LEGAL LETTER. LONDON, April 5. 1900. TWO matters of general interest have recently engaged the attention of the legal profession in this country. One of them raises, under somewhat peculiar circum stances, the question of what constitutes con tempt of court, and whether a newspaper at tack — vulgar, abusive and marked by a wanton desire to wound and offend — on a judge, constitutes such contempt, the article having appeared after the pending cause which had been made the occasion of it was finished. The facts are briefly these. On the 1 5th of March last, Mr. Justice Darling while presiding in the Assize Court at Birmingham, made some remarks by way of warning to newspapers. He was about to try a case of a very unpleasant nature, and he reminded the reporters that they were not free to publish the reports of unseemly details or evidence of disgusting facts merely because such evidence had been given in a court of law. His remarks appear to have given gen eral offence to the press of Birmingham whose editors resented the imputation that without such warning they would print the prominent details of an indecent case, or that they needed any instruction from the bench as to the conduct of their newspapers. One of them, the Daily Argiis, used the day after the trial of the action, the following language : The terrors of Mr. Justice Darling will not trouble the Birmingham reporters very much. No newspaper can exist, except upon its merits, a condition from which the Bench, happily for Mr. Justice Darling, is exempt. There is not a journalist in Birminghan who has anything to learn from the impudent little man in horsehair, a microcosm of conceit and empty-headedness who admonished the Press yesterday. It is not the credit of journalism, but of the English Bench, which is imperilled in a speech like Mr. Justice Darling's. One is almost sorry that the Lord Chancellor had not another relative to provide
for on the day that he selected a new judge from the larrikins of the law. One of Mr. Justice Darl ing's biographers states that an eccentric rela tive left him much money. That misguided tes tator spoiled a successful 'bus conductor. Mr. Justice Darling would do well to master the duties of his own profession before undertaking the regulation of another. There is a batch of Quarter Sessions prisoners awaiting trial which should have been dealt with at this Assize. A judge who applies himself to the work lying to his hand has no time to search the newspapers for indecencies. It may be remembered that when Mr. Jus tice Darling was appointed a judge, two or three years ago, there was a general criticism of the appointment on the ground that it was of a political nature and that his position at the bar and his lack of practice did not merit such distinction. Asa matter of fact he has proved an unusually sound, careful and pains taking judge and in the estimation of many of those who oftenest appear before him will in the near future take high rank among his colleagues. He certainly could at the present time give lessons to most of them in urbanity, patience and courtesy to counsel. The publication of the article could not pass unnoticed and the Attorney General accordingly moved before two judges to the Queens Bench Division, for. a peremptory order that the Secretary and Chief Executive officer of The Daily Argus Company should attend before the Divisional Court to answer for the contempt committted by him in pub lishing the article in question. The Attor ney General stated that .he might have applied for a rule nisi for attachment but he thought the motion for an order to compel the attend ance of the offending person was more in accordance with the practice. The order was granted and upon the day named the editor of the paper, a Mr. Gray, appeared, the Secretary of the company being abroad
