The Daily Dispatch: July 22, 1861.., [Electronic resource]

A curious trial.

‘ Enos Prizer and Henry T. Darlington, proprietors of the Bucks County Intelligencer, were put on trial in the Quarter Sessions, before Judge Allison, on a charge of libel. The prosecutor was Henry Black, a resident of that city, but formerly of Bucks county, and he complained that he defendants had, on the 23d of April last, published an article giving the state of feeling in the county in regard to the attack upon Fort Sumter, and after narrating some of the incidents attending the uprising of the people, the-article referred to Mr. Black, and continued: ‘"This man undertook to defend Secessionism among a crowd of people, at Sixth and Germantown Road, Philadelphia, when he was seized by the bystanders, a rope put about his neck, and he was nearly strangled by their violence. It is said that the arteries of his neck were laid open by the rough treatment he received."’

The case occupied the entire day in its trial, and was given to the jury late in the afternoon. Judge Allison, in charging the jury, said it was a proper matter of publication to designate A or B as a Secessionist, in order that the community may be on their guard, and know whether they have in their midst those who are willing to overturn the Government of the country. The only thing left for the defendants was to prove the truth of the article, and that it was published without malicious motives, and the defendants, if they proved substantially the truth of the article, they are entitled to an acquittal. If it was true that Henry Black had avowed himself a Secessionist, and therefore a traitor, the defendants had the right to publish the fact. And in regard to the other clause, that the prosecutor had been treated with violence, it was for the jury to say whether that was not calculated to hold him up to public scorn. --The defence, in setting up the truth of the article, must cover all the material facts charged against the prosecutor.

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