vices is he to be considered a representative of his class? No, certainly not, and therefore the monstrosities, Wood and Rose, are not to be taken as types of their class. If this was a libel the finest literature of ancient and modern times must be shut out. Look at Moliere's works; they are but a series of venomous caricatures of the clergy and medical profession. But he need not go to foreign literature; he would refer to works of the present day. It was a very common and growing practice to illustrate in books the state of society. 'Oliver Twist,' for example, which was written with the sole intent and purpose of doing away with the work-house system as formerly carried out; it had been successful. Another work by the same author 'Nicholas Nickleby' was intended to expose and crush the abuses in Yorkshire schools. Were any legal proceedings instituted against Mr. Dickens? No though many Yorkshire schoolmasters would have liked to do so had they dared, but they knew no jury would support them. The same difficulty occurred in defining Yorkshire schoolmasters, as in the case of the Indigo planters. There was another work to which he would call the attention of the Jury, namely, the Confession of Maria Monk. That book was devoted solely to expose malpracties alleged to have been carried on in convents and nunneries. There were no steps taken m the matter because the good sense of the parties avoided it. Mr. Harriet Becher Stowe's work 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' was another instance. If the prosecutors in this case had cause to complain, surely the slave-holders had greater cause of complaint. The American law allowed actions for libel, yet none had been instituted, because Legree was not accepted as a type of the slave-holding populations; so also Wood and Rose could not have been meant by the author as an embodiment and type of the Indigo planters. Another work in the Hindustani language had excited considerable attention here; he referred to Panchkowrie Khan a work on the system of the Moffussil Courts. Many gentlemen might have been annoyed at it, yet no legal exception was taken to it, and why? Because it was not a case for indictment. He thus left that portion of the case to the Jury. As to whether the matter was libellous or not, he would say that no general accusation could be charged on account of the atrocities committed by Wood and Rose, who must be
144
