means. When it
was exposed, that there had been certain trafficking for seats in the
House of Commons, the Speaker used these words (and it is to them, I
would show the jury, the writer of the paper alludes), "practices are as
notorious as the sun at noon-day at which our ancestors would have
started with indignation," and that gentlemen--

Mr. Justice BEST.--Will you allow me to ask you Mr. Cooper, I want to
know where you get that from.

Mr. COOPER.--My Lord, from all the reports of the speeches in the
newspapers of the day which were never contradicted.

Mr. Justice BEST.--I beg to state, that, whatever passed in Parliament,
cannot be questioned anywhere else. Whatever the Speaker said in
Parliament, he was justified in saying. But I have no means of knowing,
nor have you, whether he ever did say so or not.

Mr. COOPER.--I am not questioning anything he said in the House of
Commons--

Mr. Justice BEST.--If Mr. Abbot had said it any where else, it would have
been a libel on the constitution; if he said it there, we cannot enquire
about it; it would be a breach of privilege.

Mr. COOPER.--Your Lordship asked me, how I came to know that he said so.
My Lord, I have seen it in all the recorded speeches of the House of
Commons in the published debates in Parliament, and--

Mr. Justice BEST.--I say there are no recorded speeches of the House of
Commons to which we can listen or attend.

Mr. COOPER.--Certainly, there are no records of speeches in the House of
Commons in the sense in which the proceedings of courts of law are
records, nor is there in that sense any recorded speech of Cicero or of
Lord Chatham; but, my lord, will your lordship say, that I am not
entitled in my address to the jury to use that which has been reported as
part of a speech of Lord Chatham or of Cicero; because there are no
records filed, as in the courts of law, of their speeches! I submit that
they are matters of history; and that, as such, I am at liberty to use
them.

Mr. Justice BEST.--I tell you, Mr. Cooper, what the distinction is. If
you publish, that, which may be said to be a speech of Lord Chatham's,
and it may be an accurate report of his speech, you may be guilty of
publishing a libel, though the place, in which that speech was delivered
gave a liberty to the speech. You know it has been so decided in my Lord
Abingdon's case, who published his own speeches.

Mr. COOPER.--That, my Lord, was a libel upon a private indiv