The Phenix

In the Supreme Court yesterday, Joseph A. Whitmarsh was called to be sentenced—Mr. Hallett, his advocate, who has argued his cause three times, to different juries, occupying six hours each time, having declined to bring the question, whether libelling was a crime in Massachusetts! before the whole Court as a question of law. Mr. Hallett has given express notice to this effect, and applied for a mitigated sentence, upon the ground that his client labored under a monomania upon the peculiar subject of the libellous matter. The same Mr. Whitmarsh has recently been convicted of another libel at New Bedford, before the Common Pleas, which last libel was also published in the "Illuminator," a paper now said to be stopped. The Supreme Court here are disposed to give a mild sentence, considering all circumstances, but he was among the missing, and he and his bail were defaulted.—Boston Centinel.