Cirrus@Austlit

The writer for the Sydney Monitor (almost certainly Edward Smith Hall) comments on the libel case being brought by Edward O'Shaughnessy against the Rev'd John Dunmore Lang. While agreeing with Lang that 'no person 'who has been transported for a felony, but who subsequently obtained his freedom, is a fit person to have the management of the Press in a convict colony', Hall disapproves of the language Lang used against O'Shaughnessy, stating: 'But the way in which Dr. Lang has represented the affair, has been slanderous and malicious in the extreme, and we sincerely hope such a flagrant breach of the laws of libel will be fairly tried, and that in the administration of public justice, the law will prove itself to be blind, and not appear to make an offence the less, because committed by a clergyman. We should not have felt justified in making these remarks, but for the above paragraph [the Monitor has quoted from the Colonist] of Dr. Lang's newspaper. But we shall not allow the Dr. to influence the coming trial by his criticisms, without correcting his articles on the subject, from time to time, as they may be published.'