a contempt of Court is because their tendency and sometimes their object is to deprive the Court of the power of doing that which is the end for which it exists-namely, to administer justice duly, impartially, and with reference solely to the facts. judicially brought before it. Their tendency is to reduce the Court which has to try the case to impotence, so far as the effectual elimination of prejudice and prepossession is concerned. It is difficult to conceive an apter description of such conduct than is conveyed by the expression "contempt of Court." If it be once grasped that such is the nature of the offence, what possible difference can it make whether the particular Court which is thus sought to be deprived of its independence, and its power of effecting the great end for which it is created, be at that moment in session or even actually constituted or not? It is perfectly certain that by law it will and must be constituted, and that when constituted it and it alone can take cognizance of the particular offence which is the subject of the preliminary inquiry. The wrong can hardly be the less because the purpose or the tendency of the act complained of is that the Assize Court never shall have undisturbed power to fulfil its functions satisfactorily. The High Court exists always. To provide beforehand that one of its branches which, although it does not at the moment exist, yet must, both according to immemorial custom, and now also by statutes and rules having the same effect, come into existence, shall be hampered and hindered in the effectual discharge of its duties as soon as it is constituted, if called upon to try a particular case which it is at all events proposed to bring into that Court, is surely an offence against the High Court itself. Looking, therefore, to the principles upon which this jurisdiction rests, and to the mischief to prevent which it exists, we can have no doubt that it is properly invoked in the present case. Great stress has been laid by Mr. Danckwerts upon an expression which has been used in the judgments upon questions of this kind-that the remedy exists when there is a cause pending in the Court. We think undue importance has been 1903 REX ". PARKE. Wills J. 1903 REX v. РАВКЕ. Wills J. attached to it. It is true that in very nearly all the cases which have arisen there has been a cause actually begun, so that the expression, quite natural under the circumstances, accentuates the fact, not that the case has been begun, but that it is not at an end. That is the cardinal consideration. It is possible very effectually to poison the fountain of justice before it begins to flow. It is not possible to do so when the stream has ceased. We proceed shortly to notice the authorities upon which reliance has been placed, and which we have been able to obtain from the Crown Office. It will be observed that they are almost all of recent date. This is what might be expected. Before the Law of Libel Amendment Act, 1888, the publication of proceedings before magistrates preliminary to a committal to assize or quarter sessions was at least of doubtful legality: see note in the Revised Reports to Rex v. Fisher (1), from which it appears that doubts had begun to be cast upon the older doctrine as early as 1858. It was considered at least until 1858 that the inevitable tendency of such a publication was to have the case tried, so to speak, in the minds of persons who might be jurors before they came into Court: Rex v. Fisher (1); Rex v. Lee. (2) Since that time till after 1888 only one case is recorded in which the publication of such reports or of extraneous matter connected with them has been brought under the notice of the Courts. Modern journalism with its ceaseless thirst for matters which may interest its readers is a thing of very recent growth; and when the publication of the preliminary proceedings was unlawful or of doubtful legality, not only was the occasion wanting for the publication of many things which since that Act have given rise to complaint, but the unlawfulness of the publication of the proceedings themselves was a standing warning to editors and publishers which was not likely to be overlooked. The only old authority that has been cited to us (apart from those which have been spoken of as dealing with cases actually pending in a Court) is Rex v. Burchett (3), in which it is said that the Court of King's (1) (1811) 2 Camp. 563; 11 R. R. 799. (2) (1804) 5 Esp. 123. Bench never interferes with contempt of inferior Courts. This case is an authority, so far as it goes, rather upon the question of general jurisdiction of the Court of King's Bench in its character as the superintending authority over inferior Courts than upon the question we are now dealing with; and the circumstances of that case are such that, except for the general proposition stated, it can have little bearing upon any question likely to arise in any other case. We come therefore at once to the somewhat numerous series of cases which have arisen in quite modern times. The earliest is reported in 2 Times L. R. 351, heard in 1886 before Lord Coleridge C.J. and Hawkins J. Certain persons had been summoned at Bow Street on February 13, 1886, on a charge of inciting to riot. The proceedings were adjourned, and pending the adjournment Punch published a woodcut and letterpress headed “ Sneaking Sedition." A rule was applied for to call upon the printer and publisher of Punch to shew cause why he should not be committed for contempt of Court. The Court of Queen's Bench refused the rule, Lord Coleridge saying (as reported) that he had never heard it even suggested that this Court could imprison a man for "contempt of Court committed in another place "—an obviously incorrect expression, not at all likely to have been used by Lord Coleridge. The case was within the jurisdiction of the Central Criminal Court, and the trial of the persons summoned took place there. The fact that the Central Criminal Court had become, by virtue of the Judicature Act of 1873, ss. 16 and 29, a branch of the High Court was not called to the attention of the Court. The next case in order of time was Ex parte Hermann. The applicant had been brought before the police court at Marlborough Street with a view to her committal to the Central Criminal Court on a charge of murder. The People newspaper of April 1, 1894, contained a statement that she had been tried and acquitted in 1890 on a similar charge, and contained a fairly accurate account of what had happened on that occasion, when the Common Serjeant had held that there was no evidence against her. An application to commit the editor 1903 REX V. PARKE. Wills J. 1903 REX v. PARKE. Wills J. and publisher of the People was heard before Wright and Collins JJ. The question of jurisdiction was raised but not insisted upon; and the matter was allowed to drop on the defendants undertaking to pay the costs of the application. The case is reported only in the newspapers of the day under the name of Reg. v. Armstrong. (1) We have had the papers in the Crown Office looked up, and the above statement of facts may be relied upon. Mr. Danckwerts has satisfied us that the Central Criminal Court stands upon precisely the same footing, for the present purpose, as the Assize Courts; but that fact does not appear to have been brought to the notice of the Court. Wright J. is reported to have said that, although he could find no case in point, he should hesitate long before coming to the conclusion that this Court had no jurisdiction in such a case. The next case was in January, 1895, when a rule was made absolute against one Stead and others. One of the defendants was fined, but, as in that instance an indictment had already been removed by certiorari into the Queen's Bench, it has no bearing upon the present discussion: Reg. v. Stead. (2) On December 21, 1895, Wills and Wright JJ. refused a rule in respect of comments of a newspaper on a case of one Crane, who had been committed to the Central Criminal Court on the ground of want of jurisdiction. In this case also it was not called to the attention of the Court that the judge at the Central Criminal Court sat under commissions identical with those which constitute the Assize Courts, and it was assumed that they sat under the Act of 1834, by which the Central Criminal Court was established (4 & 5 Will. 4, c. 36), and not under the commissions required by that Act: see Law Journal newspaper, January 4, 1896. The next case, Reg. v. Payne (3), in April, 1896, when a rule granted against the editor and publisher of the Huntingdonshire Post for comments on a case under committal was discharged on the merits, has little relevance, no question having been raised as to the jurisdiction. (1) The Times, May 9, 1894. In May, 1896, a rule was refused on the merits in respect of comments on a case in which two persons named Milson and Flower had been committed to the Central Criminal Court on a charge of murder. No question of jurisdiction was raised. On January 19, 1897, Wright and Bruce JJ. granted a rule in respect of an article in the Brecon and Radnor County Times upon a case of Rex v. Williams and Others, who stood committed for trial to the assizes. The same judges in the same term allowed the rule to be discharged on the defendants undertaking to pay the costs of the applicant as between solicitor and client. The question of jurisdiction does not seem to have been raised: Reg. v. Felgate. (1) On January 26, 1897, a rule was refused by Wright and Bruce JJ. against the same defendants for an article in the same paper. It is not reported, but there can be no doubt that it was refused on the merits and not on any question of jurisdiction. On April 28, 1899, this Court, then consisting of Lord Russell C.J., Darling and Channell JJ., granted a rule for comments on a case of one Mary Ann Ansell, who had been committed to the Hertfordshire Assizes on a charge of murder. The rule, however, was, for some reason which we cannot trace, not drawn up. Probably, as in the late case of Rex v. Newton (2), it was supposed to be a matter between the parties only, and was compromised without the leave of the Court. We are informed that there may have been other cases on the civil side of the Court of which there is no record in the Crown Office. If it is so, they would probably be cases in which comments had been made affecting proceedings in matters pending on the civil side, and if so would afford no assistance in the present discussion. It will thus be seen that there have been only two cases in which the question of jurisdiction was effectively raisedin each instance with respect to cases which, if tried at all, would have been tried at the Central Criminal Court. In both cases the Court assumed that the Central Criminal Court was a separate and independent Court with which this Court had (1) Not reported. (2) Not reported. 1903 REX v. PARKE. Wills J. |