AMONG the various duties of a newspaper editor, one of the most arduous is, that of determining what sort of domestic events it may be useful to cover over with a veil of silence, and what sort are they, of which the concealment would operate as an injury to the public. Occurrences will often take place in private life, which, on every principle of moral expediency and justice, ought never to be born beyond the threshold of the place where the parties reside. And, on the other hand, there are certain acts, which, if passed over without notice by civil authority, or animadversion on the part of the press, may produce evils destructive to society. Another laborious task imposed on a journalist is the dilemma in which his duty to the public and his fear of offending the delicacy of individuals, frequently places him, when he is about to record events which cannot be suppressed without doing a serious injury to public morals. {5} I am well aware that things must not be related in all that naked grossness of truth, which a legal tribunal requires for promoting the ends of justice; and that as much delicacy as is consistent with correctness of information, is necessary in narrations of the sort to which I allude. This has been the principle on which I have uniformly acted in the conduct of this paper. But to suppress in a newspaper the publication of a fact which meets the eyes and ears of all people would be at once absurd and mischievous. For instance, in the month of October, 1810, 6 or 7 miscreants were placed in the pillory in the presence of many thousand spectators; they were then conveyed through the most public streets in an open cart, during which time they were pelted with mud and dirt by an indignant populace: all the inhabitants of the streets viewed this disgusting exhibition from their windows; and could it have been possible—nay, must it not have been mischievous to conceal from any body the crime for which these culprits were then punished? How foolish then would it have been for any reader of a newspaper to be offended at seeing it mentioned in print? I have thought it necessary to preface with these remarks, the narrative of facts which I am now about to relate; and which I should at present abstain from noticing were it possible to give them publicity through the medium of any court of justice. But as two eminent counsellors {6} have given an opinion against the _legal practicability_ of such a procedure, for reasons which I shall presently state; and as in the mean time the public morals may suffer;—the press must on this occasion interpose as their guardian.