MR. JUSTICE WILLIAMS thought there should be a new trial. It was said that they should not grant a new trial, because their so doing would be a hardship upon the defendant. That such was not an objection to the granting of a new trial was decided by authority. In the case of Costa _v._ Merest (3 B. and B., 272), some one, a stranger to both the parties, circulated in the Court handbills reflecting on the plaintiff’s character. Defendant was absolutely innocent of any connection with the distribution of these handbills, and the Court that heard the application for a new trial assumed that the jury had not been unduly influenced. But, taking the defendant’s statement as true, the Court made the rule absolute for a new trial. If any case would be a hardship on a defendant he thought that would have been. There was a defendant entirely innocent, yet because it might be alleged with reasonable suspicion or belief that the administration of justice had been influenced by the distribution of the handbills, the Court on that ground granted a new trial. In this case, so far as the question of hardship was concerned—with which he thought they had nothing to do—the defendant was not so entirely innocent. The parties to litigation lost their personality in their counsel and solicitor, and the persons who did these acts which gave rise to reasonable suspicion in the minds of plaintiff and others who witnessed them, were the defendants’ own counsel and legal adviser. Therefore, in the circumstances, he did not think the argument of hardship applied. Then it was said the learned Judge of the County Court had already decided the matter of this application; that in the exercise of his discretion he refused a new trial. In his opinion, however, the learned Judge had not dealt with the application on the grounds upon which it now came before the Court on appeal. He had apparently gone on the aspect of what was the intention of the defendants’ solicitor and counsel, whether they were actuated by any corrupt motive, and whether the jury were in point of fact influenced by what they did. Those were the grounds on which Judge Chomley dealt with the case; and, speaking for himself, he did not differ from the view taken by the learned Judge on that aspect. The principle upon which the Court should exercise its discretionary power in granting a new trial on an application of this kind was, that if from the acts of the jury or the legal advisers of one of the parties in connection with the jury, there were reasonable grounds for suspicion that the administration of justice was being improperly influenced, the Court should, in order to preserve the administration of justice from that stain or taint, grant a new trial. It appeared to have been established on authority that where acts had been committed such as to give reasonable ground for suspicion, in the minds of the litigating party and his advisers or the public, that there had