THE ERA LIBEL CASE. T HE liberty of libelling is not
one of the privileges of a free people for which the Spectator has hitherto con- tended. On the contrary, we have always maintained that the grand drawback to the usefulness of a free Press is the tendency of unscrupulous men to abuse it for purposes of libel, and have steadily resisted all proposals for placing editors above the law. It seems to us monstrous, for example, to plead that because an excited or ruffianly speaker in some hole-and-corner meeting has uttered some gross libel, therefore an editor should have the right to give that libel permanence, effect, and circu- lation by reproducing it in print. It is therefore with some surprise that we find ourselves to-day compelled to plead the cause of a defendant whom a jury has declared to be guilty of libel, and has amerced in costs. There must, however, be some freedom for journalists, if they are to be of any service to the community at all ; and if the verdict in "Dallas v. Ledger" is to be a precedent, that freedom is more limited than is either expedient or just. It would be better to leave off writing than to write under fetters so heavy and so closely locked. The facts of the case are
simple, and are not seriously called in question on either side. Miss Vivienne Dallas, a theatrical manager, travels with a troupe of sixteen children, described in advertisements as ranging from three to fourteen years, whom she has trained to act. By her own statement, she treats these children quite well, holding Bible-classes for them on Sunday, and there is, so far as we
know, no allegation against her, certainly no justified allega- tion, either of oppression or neglect. At Grimsby, however, a
dispute arose as to the right to the guardianship of some of
the children, during which a lady, a companion of Miss Dallas, was pushed, and prosecuted the pusher before the Magistrates. The Bench inflicted a fine for the assault, but the Mayor added words indicating that he disapproved of this kind of employment for young children. The case attracted the attention of Mr. Ledger, the editor of the Era, and he
having a strong objection to the employment of young children on the stage, used it as a peg for an article protesting against the practice. The article is mildness itself. With the exception of a single high-flown and rather foolish sentence declaring that the case threw "a lurid light" upon the abuses to which the employment of child-actors ?night lead, there is not a word in it which might not have been written by the most ordinary reporter intent only on condensing the evidence in the Grimsby Court. We certainly should not have found in it the faintest imputation on Miss Dallas—unless it was a remark about salaries being in arrear, which was admitted in Court to be true at the moment—nor anything, except the general condemnation of the employment of child-actors, which could by possibility tend to the injury of her business. This also was the opinion of the Lord Chief Justice, who would, as he explained during a subsequent application about costs, have ordered a non-suit had he been asked to do so, and who charged in the most unmistakable way in favour of a verdict for the defendant. In truth, it is fair to say that Lord Coleridge went as near to ridicule of the plaint as is at all usual on the Bench. The jury, however, were of a different opinion, and gave a verdict for the plaintiff, with 40s. damages, avowing as they did so that they intended it to carry costs. In other words, they inflicted a heavy fine on Mr. Ledger for stating. in rather ill-chosen words, that in his opinion little children should not be employed to act in public.
If a journalist may not say a thing like that, he clearly has, as a social reformer, no place in this world ; but the surrounding circumstances make the verdict even a stranger one. Mr. Ledger was not an habitual writer of libels whom the jury were glad to catch, or even an ordinary journalist carelessly denouncing a practice he knew nothing about. The Era is the recognised organ of the theatrical profession ; and though it seems to non-theatrical people one of the oddest journals in the world—the advertisements, in particular, being unlike the advertisements in any other paper, and requiring in the reader knowledge of a special and most quaint terminology —it is always respectable, and sometimes able. Its conductor tries, so far as his readers can perceive, to guide the public taste aright ; and it is not only his right, but his duty, to mention and to reprehend any abuse which he sees arising or likely to arise within the theatrical world. Whether the employ- ment of little children as actors is to be classed among abuses, may be matter of opinion in a world in which babies sell matches and peddle evening papers, though more than a generation ago Mr. Lumley was severely criticised for doing the same thing ; but it is clearly within the competence of a journalist who thinks so to express his opinion. If not, nobody may say anything in print about the proper employ- ment of the young ; and the benevolent men of the last generation who used such tremendous language about child- sweeps were a pack of libellers liable to fines. We venture to say that had Lord Shaftesbury been alive, and aware that children of "three "—they were so de- scribed, but seem to have been older—were advertised as actors in a theatre, he would have used language in denunciation of such a practice to which that of Mr. Ledger would have appeared tameness itself, and would not have waited, either, for sworn evidence of the fact. Mr. Ledger did wait. He said nothing whatever, except that nonsense about "lurid light" which, with many writers for the Press, is only a common form intended to attract attention, which did not appear in the evidence given before the Magistrates ; and he was, as we believe, and as we think, from the report of his observations, that Lord Coleridge believed, protected
by his privilege of fair comment on a public trial. At all events, he said nothing, with the exception afore- said, that any person pleading any philanthropic cause is not obliged to say ; and to fine him for saying it, is to deny the right of journalists to condemn abuses altogether. The tendency of London juries to find verdicts of libel is, we fear, one of the last remaining defences against a practice morally as evil as garotting, and socially more destructive of human happiness ; but in this instance a jury has passed not only the limits of common-sense, but, if we are to take our law from the Bench, the wider limits fixed by the written law.
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