Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 16.pdf/451

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The Green Bag.

In the case of Miller, the publisher of the Evening Post (20 St. Tr. 870) there was no question as to publication, but Thurlow and Glynn, the opposing counsel, respectively attacked and defended Junius' letter itself. Lord Mansfield directed the jury in his usual way. He admitted that they had the legal

King, the jury adroitly avoided Mansfield's direction by finding the defendant "guilty of printing and publishing only," a verdict which the court held to be so uncertain as to necessitate a new trial. A still more vigorous attack upon Lord Mansfield's doctrine was made by Thomas

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5 JUSTICE BULLER.

power to give a general verdict of not guiltv, but denied their moral right to do so unless they doubted the fact of publication or the truth of the innuendoes. The jury boldly took the matter into their own hands, and returned a verdict of not guilty. On the trial of Woodfall (20 St. Tr. 895), the original publisher of Juntos' letter to the

Erskine in I he case of the Dean of St. Asaph (21 St. Tr. 847). The Dean was pros ecuted for the publication of a Dialogue on the Principles of Government, which a.d been written by his brother-in-law, Sir William Jones. In view of the public agitation for a change in the representative system, the dialogue was designed to make plain the