THE GREAT CITY LIBEL CASE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXII, Issue 30, 5 February 1891, Page 6

THE GREAT CITY LIBEL CASE.

SSKSATIQNAL DtaCLOSUaES.

(FfiOM Oim LONBON COItIUiSPONDESTi)

London, December 13> The moral of the great City libol case of Marks v. Butterfio'd, winch terminated on Wednesday after six days' trial in a vordiot for the defendant, ia that a man is a fool to venture on aggressive journalism unless hia own hands are perfectly clean. All London —I was going to say all the world—knows Harry Mark?. In bis capacity of editor of the "Financial News " he has blown more bubble companies into fragments and won more libel 'cases in tho Courts than any man living, save, perhaps, the invincible "L&bby." Unfortunately, unlike tne worldly-wise conductor of " Truth, ' ilr Marka's principles were not quite_ so strong as his convictions, and in an evil moment he allowed hia own pttper to stray into the evil paths ho bo condemned in others. It was, however, no light matter for his many enemies to bowl Mr Marks out. He had money and influence galore behind his back latterly, and again and a-ain Chose who tried to throw, found, instead, they •were badly thrown themselves. Ab length, however, the evil day has come. Wot that the 'evidence against Marks was Hfc all conclusive. On the contrary, the Recorder fiumraed up dead in the ptaintiif s favour and declared the verdict against the weight of testimony. But that —aa Mr Gill, the clever young counsel who beat Sir C. Russell and Mr Chas. Matthovvs single-handed, said—doesn't matter. Die jury had heard enough to convince tnem that Marks was not straight, and (as the foreman remarked) that) their verdict would bs for the public benefit. Marks will hare to pay over £10,000 in costs, and the prestige of his paper is, of course, sadly damaged, The story, which is a most interesting one, runs thus, according to a neat summary of the lengthy proceedings by a nana nob unfriendly to Marks. The quarrel between the parties is one or long standing. Mr Marks had pulverised a promising scheme of Mr Bubterfield by comments in "The Financial Kews." Mr BatterEeld had thereupon sued Mr Marks ior libel, and had lost tho flay. Hβ then entered on the guerilla warfare of the thj3 pamphlet, and he issued a publication broadcast, in which he accused Mr Marks of having first seduced, and then robbed, ill-used, and deserted a widow in hew York. Thie was the chief foundation^ of the prosecution for libel instituted by Mr Marks. Mr Butterfield's plea of justification further alleged that Mr Marks had been guilty of extremely questionable practices in connection with certain companies; and the general purport of his statements was that Mr Marks was a. person altogether devoid of honour _ in almost every important relation of life. Tho allegations in reference to the woman were of the mo3t definite character. On her husband's death, she became proprietor of a paper in New York, to which Mr Marks was a contributor. Mr Marks, it was suggested, had seduced her, and had used the influence thus acquired to make her sign away her property to him. Having thus ruined her alike in honour and in interest, he had made haste to abandon both her and her child, of which he wa3 the father, and on her reproaching him for his baseness he had caused her to be arrested on a charge of insanity. He had then returned to England to make his forture by the promotion of commercial morality in " The Financial News." It was not denied that he had made his fortune ; it was only said thafc he had sometimes forgotten to promote commercial morality. He had bought a gold plot of questionable value in that land : of auriferous realities and illusions, the Transvaal, and had foisted it on a confiding British public by practices perfectly well known to the trade. Among these practices was included the offer of disinterested advice to investors in favour of the mine, in the columns of " The Financial News." In order not to create confueion in the minds of his readers, he had found a bogus vendor to act in his name, and with a ring largely composed of hia relatives or friends, he had made a very good thing by the speculation. When the affair had finally found its natural level of ruin, Mr Marks, touched by the condition of the shareholders, had offered to buy back the property at its depreciated value, on conditions which secured his release from all the unpieasant consequences of tho operation. Such were the charges, and of course Mr Marks denied every one of them that was material to the issue. Hβ had, indeed, wronged the widow in one way alleged, bnbinno other way. Nor had he even, as she affirmed, deserted her and left her without means. On this last point, ib musb be confessed, all the weight of evidence seemed to be on one side. Bundles of acknowledgments were produced of sums received from Mr Marks, and Mrs Koppel could only plead that she had no idea of what she was doing when she put her name to them. A widow, and especially a widow of New York, should almost disdain to use a plea of that kind. There were moments when the case seemed to be drifting into an inquiry as to abuses of the power of hypnotic suggestion. In regard to the affair of the Rae Mine, Mr Alarks declared that, on the transaction aa a whole, he was a loser by some thousands of pounds ; that he had every reason to believe the mine a sound property ; and that in disposing of it to the public through a nominal vendor he had only followed a practice all but universal, in affairs of that sort. The chiof interest of the trial lay in his cross-examination. A narrative founded on hia answers would read like a page of Balzac. This man, whose powers in the journalism of finance bear a certain resemblance in degree to those of Marat in the journalism of politics, began life as an usher at a school in Islington. Then, as a boy of' fifteen, he emigrated to America, and went intio a wholesale drug house at New Orleans. He had no money, he had only his energy and his wits, He worked in the laboratory, or lenfc a hand in tho French and German correspondence, as occasion required. From New Orleans he went to Texas, as "a canvasser for sewing machines," and *' driver of a mule team." The next move was almost inevitable in an America:n career. He became editor of a daily parser —ateoventeen. He had found his vocation : and, in one engagement or o'jher, he acquired a knowledge of almoa*) evpry department of American newspaper work. He had even found it, after a fashion, before the mule driving and the sowing machines, for ab fourteen he bad written letters for the papers, and the letters had found their way into print. He was still a young man when he met the widow—a young man with a voice, and ib was insinuated that he had, in a manner, sung- her into signing a bill of sale. When he left her, on his first return visit to England, he •was still in a poor way- He did not, he said, desert her, but he took his passage as aMr Henry, and nob as Mr Marks, because he did nob want her to come down to the docks to make a scene. Efe soon lost* ,, eight of the child, and to this day has rxc. personal knowledge of what became of it. He was told that ib had been left in tj},j Btroot in front of his bouse, bub he canjr.ob vouch for the fact. When Mrs Kop'ael's paper died, he started "The Beer G'.ass " and then " The Postal Card." Then, in due time, came London and "The Financial News." He had no money, be had o n ly the idea, but that was enough ; the mo nev was soon found. At length he bad struck cold for in due time " The Financial Nr/vra ''was to pay 50 per cent, on the ordina.rv nnrt fi jiavceot, ga the pcefoei£o q^

IMU'fi of the business of tbs paper was to uivg advice by letter " in Regard to all glares of loOtMbigi," W6 & fihafgo of 5a per letter, Three yai'S after tho (starting of " The Financial New* " oeine the affair of the Kne Mine ; one year r.tt.or tho Kae—or, &§ 'he prttforrad to put it, lour yeara after the starting of the paper—Mr Marks became a country gentleman by the purohase of Lowden Hall, He may retain that enviable pssitlon for a long time, for he ia still buc in his thlrty-Hfth yoar. What aro wo to say of such a career, and of such a trial ? It is far easier to cay somethin? oi the latter. Mr Marks is the hero of twonty-three successful actions, butassuredly he has blundered at lust. A civil process would have suited hia purpose better, for it would have given him anopportunity of renewing the proceedings, if he had felt dissatisfied with the result. Dissatisfied he has every reason to be, for, to a man in his peculiar" position, the verdict is a very serious blcvr. The Judge shares his dissatisfaction ; but there, confronting both of them, the veidict is. It might not have taken its present torm if Mr Marks had sought a lesa vindictive method of address. The Jury evidently felt that they had to choose between sending Mr Butterfield—and peihaps ultimately, Mrs Koppel—to gaol, and sending Mr Marks out of court with a damaged reputation ; and they preferred the last. They might have come to !a somewhat different decision if the alternative had taken a milder form. Mr Marks's treatment of Mrs Koppel remains, after all, very much hia secret and hers. His treatment of the shareholders of the Rae Mine is more a matter of evidence before the whole world. It is not disputed that, while he had a large interest in the concern, he took measures to conceal the fact from the multitudes- to whom he was recommending the venture in his paper as a profitable speculation. If this is right, then hardly anything done in the City ia wrong. The defendant's counsel pub ib in a peculiarly telling way when he suggested that Mr Marks had positively charged for the letters in which he had given delusive advice. " The Financial News "' was supposed to be a paper with nothing to conceal. Bub the dummy vendor has very much to conceal; and it is impossible to ssy that Mr Marks dealt fairly with his subscribers and his clients in concealing him. He had become a sort of private inquiry agent in finance, for the benefit of the public ; he was well paid for his exertions ; and both policy and honour should have urged him to observe all the obligations of his part.