Mr. Justice North: There is no justification in the case. The question the jury have to decide is whether you, and the persons present with you, are guilty of a libel or not. For that purpose they will have to consider whether the matters in question are a libel. If so, they will have also to consider whether you and the other defendants are guilty of having published it. If they think it a libel, and that you have published it, they will have answered the only two questions they will have to put to themselves. Mr. Foote: My lord, in an ordinary libel case justification can be shown. Mr. Justice North: Go on. Mr. Foote: I do not wish to occupy the time of the court unnecessarily, but really I think your lordship ought to remember the grave position in which I stand, and not stand in the way of anything which I consider to be of vital importance to my defence. Mr. Justice North: I have pointed out to you what I consider to be the question the jury have got to decide. I hope you will not go outside the lines I have pointed out to you; but, with these remarks, I am very reluctant to interfere with any prisoner saying anything which he considers necessary, and I will not stop you. I hope you will not abuse the concession I consider I am making to you. Mr. Foote: I should be very sorry, my lord. I am only stating what I consider necessary." This is a very fair specimen of his lordship's manners. Unfortunately, it is also a fair specimen of his lordship's law. When I read similar extracts in the Court of Queen's Bench, Lord Coleridge never interrupted me once; nay, he told the jury that I had very properly brought those passages before their notice, that I had a perfect right to do so, and that it was a legitimate part of my defence. Since then I have conversed with many gentlemen who were present, some of them belonging to the legal profession, and I have heard but one opinion expressed as to Judge North's conduct. They all agree that it was utterly undignified, and a scandal to the bench. Perhaps it had something to do with his lordship's removal, a few weeks afterwards, to the Chancery Court, where his eccentricities, as the _Daily News_ remarked at the time, will no longer endanger the liberty and lives of his fellow-subjects.