Gentlemen, after hearing this statement from the pen of an educated and eminent lawyer, can you hesitate to return a verdict of acquittal? You have now a complete history of this "_judiciary forgery_" as Jefferson terms it, before you; and I am satisfied that that which originated in a _fraudulent mistranslation_, cannot, now that the fraud is detected, long retain the force of law. On this ground, then, I confidently claim your verdict. Gentlemen, I now come to the trade argument--that it is a great hardship and injustice to hold a bookseller responsible for the contents of the books he sells. I am a general bookseller; and so great is the competition, and so fully is my time occupied, that I have no time to spare for reading the various works in my shop, even if I had the inclination. My excellent and amiable son, before his death, and before I had any idea of this prosecution, drew up a paper for the management of my business, by which it appears that upwards of seventy weekly periodicals pass through my hands every week, besides books and many other periodicals that are merely collected to order. Amongst them will be found every possible variety--"The Church of England Magazine," "The Sacred Album," and many others maintaining contradictory and conflicting opinions; but I do not hold myself responsible--either legally or morally--for any of them. I have no right to set myself up as a censor of the press. I sell them all--and am not responsible for any man’s opinions upon an abstract or general subject. When the subject matter of a book relates to the people at large, the public alone should decide upon its merits. If the book be a good one, they will support it; if a bad one, they will condemn and reject it. This is the only proper punishment for a bad author. The line of duty I mark out for myself in that I will never sell obscene publications--works that demoralise and corrupt society--nor any attacks upon private character; and if a person comes to me complaining that his character has been falsely and slanderously attacked, I sell no more of that work. What more can be expected from a general bookseller? If the sale of a controversial book is to be suppressed, because it contains a few passages in bad taste, and of objectionable phraseology, then the sale of the Bible itself must be prohibited, for that book contains many passages far more objectionable in the present day than any to be found in "Haslam’s Letters to the Clergy." I have here a list of passages from the Bible, of a highly objectionable character; but as I perceive a number of ladies in the court, I will not pollute their ears, nor shock the feelings of the Jury, by reading them. My only object in alluding to them, is to show that if the principle of selecting two or three objectionable passages from a work is to lead to its condemnation, and the punishment of the bookseller, then I might with equal justice be condemned for selling the Bible itself.