AN EXPENSIVE BITE.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 5678, 28 August 1905, Page 7

AN EXPENSIVE BITE.

(From Otir Special Correspondent.! LONDON. July 8. “Toby M.P./' the Parliamentary diarist of Punch, has come off second best in a libel action brought by a fellow journalist this week* It seems from the | evidence that the gentleman with the I doggy non-de-plurne. who is equally well • known as Mr H. W. Lucy, has not been jon good terms with Mr F. Moy Thomas, 1 the plaintiff in this action. They had been confreres on the “Daily News," but Mr Thomas disliked the other's"“euperciliousnees," and a© a consequence they were not on speaking terms. Now It came to pass that recently Mr Thomas wrote a biography of the late Sir ‘John Robinson, for many years the manager of the “Daily News.” Mr Lucy reviewed the book m “Punch," nnder the heading “Mangled Remains"—and this libel action against “Punch" and Mr Lucv was the result. Plaintiff complained that' the criticism was bitter, spiteful and cruel, and made him appear a selfglorifying ass. “Toby M.P." had in his review charged the biographer with “adding a new terror to death," and called his book “an unparalleled atrocity." He charged Mr Thomas with “re-telling poor - Robinson’s cherished stories as if they | were his own, sometimes with a heavy i hand brushing off the bloom.” He de- \ scribed the method adopted by the bio. I grapher as “unjust to Robinson, unfair to the public,” and the net effect of his criticism was to suggest that Mr Thomas had appropriated much of Sir John’s work as his own. and glorified himself at the expense of his subject. The defence was that the review was honest criticism, written without malice, and as such was fair comment. Mr Lucy did his case no good, however, when he told that jury that in setting out to review “Fifty Years in Fleet street" he was actuated by a desire to "give a lift i

to a struggling journalist.” Mr Thomas’s rH'U’usL‘l naturally seized upon this piece of contemptuous patronage, and although “Toby” aiterwanis withdrew the remark with an expression of regret, it may well have left an unfavourable impre>s ; on upon the jury. Mr Justice Darling summed up in favour of Mr Thomas. He quoted a pa-eage from Golds ddi’s poem on tho Islington "Mad Dog” and the Islington godly man: This dog and man at first were friends, UiU wneu a pique began. The dog, to gain some private ends, Went mad and bit the man. Vnliko other dogs who came into that Court, said the Court jester, "Toby” was not entitled even to one bite. The jurv found in favour of the plaintift, and awaided uu riige»s. A tsia> oi execution was granted on behalf of the defendants.