LORD DENMANcomplained that he had been misrepresented by a leading journal in the statement that he had greatly praised the present Limited Liability Bill, whereas his remarks solely applied to the Bill before the House last Session. If he were not so insignificant an individual, he should really think himself an object of dislike to the paper in question, for in February 1854, he addressed a letter to the "Standard" respecting the leading article in The Times on the deafness of Lord Rokeby, after which a letter was inserted in the first edition of The Times, which edition he scarcely ever saw (and it was withdrawn from the second edition on account of the proved exaggeration of the statement), so that taking the second edition he had not seen it for some time; but still he bore no malice to the publication, and continued to take it in, until he saw a flippant report from the correspondent in the Crimea, noticing in a marked manner Lord Rokeby's attending at the representation of "Deaf as a Post," and he could stand it no longer, and discontinued taking in the paper. This same afterwards-suppressed letter had accused him of ignorance of acoustics from not knowing that in a railway carriage any deaf person can hear better than in a quiet room; whereas he had written, that when the "vile guns roared" Lord Rokeby would hear the faintest whisper. He added, that it (coming from the Reform Club) had treated him with the utmost contempt, and doubted about the "Standard," to which his father had often contributed with a benevolent design. He went on to say, that when journals for a political object misrepresented the truth, they might well be reminded of a Canadian journal which, in the time of Lord Metcalfe, had suffered for speaking the truth, and read an extract, premising that it was the object of a party to have the word "your" substituted for "our" as to the Governor's imagined secession from his post:—
So much importance is attached by the party to a general belief among their followers of the certainty of that occurrence, that in the French 1055 paper the Minerve, the organ of that party, those passages of my speech at the close of the session which contained the words 'our next meeting,' and 'until we meet again,' are translated so as to convert those words into 'your next session,' and 'until your return.' Another French paper, the Aurore, noticed the mistranslation and exposed the design, But the Aurore is excommunicated, and the Minerve is the only paper read to the mass of the French Canadians."—Life of Lord Metcalfe, vol. ii. p. 570.The gentlemen behind the clock alluded to by a noble Earl the other night in the debate on Indian affairs were not bound to report him at all, but if they did so they should adhere to truth; and if journals could be discommons-ed for speaking the truth, surely they might be treated like dishonest Oxford tradesmen if they wilfully persisted in falsehood; and the same journal has never expressed the slightest regret for the misrepresentation as to the number of troops to be sent with Sir W. Eyre to Montreal, which has caused two million dollars to be raised for war preparations in the United States; and he could only close these rather desultory remarks by reminding the organs of information that "Magna est veritas et prœvalebit."