THE LAW OF LIBEL

Evening Star, Issue 10055, 11 July 1896, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE LAW OF LIBEL

[Contributed.]

In view of the free comments and criticisms of the day it may be of interest to readers of the Star to know how far a man may safely go for his neighbor. I therefore will give you a few illustrations of what one man may say of another without fear of anything but a horsewhip. Attorneys in particular have been very sensitive, and have had some fearful rebuffs in the court.

To say of a solicitor “ he has defrauded his creditors aud has been horsewhipped off the course at Doncaster” is not libellous, for it is no part of his official duty to go to a racecourse. You must not accuse him of having “ the falling sickness,” but it is consoling to know that you can safely vent your spleen over a heavy bill of costs by calling your solicitor “cheat,” “rogue,’’and “ knave.”

A justice of the peace is fair prey for the angry litigant. “ Ass,” “ fool,” “ blockhead,” “beetle-headed justice,” “loggerheaded,” “ a slouch-headed, bursen-bellied hound,” “ he is a blood-sucker and sucketh blood ” are a few of the many terms that can be safely applied to him. It is safe to abuse a justice in general terms for the naive reason “ that no special learning or ability is expected from a justice of the peace.” It is not actionable to say of a surgeon “he did poison the wound of his patient,” because this might be for the cure of it ; nor to accuse a physician of adultery unconnected with his profession— i.e., outside his patients. To say to a pork butcher “Who stole Fraser’s pigs? you did, you thief, and I can prove it; you poisoned them with mustard and brimstone! ” is not actionable.

It is safe to accuse a clergyman out of office of incontinence. To say of an ex-linen draper, who had become a dissenting minister, that he was guilty of fraud and cheating when a linen draper is no slander of that gentleman in his capacity of minister. But you must not call a bishop a wicked man. To accuse a clergyman of drunkenness is no slander, hut you must not call him an “ habitual ” ! It is safer to call a man a thief than to call him a thief.

It is no libr-1 to state of a physician that he has met homccopathislsin consultation, as one angry physician found out to his cost. 1 will give you a few samples of terms that by authority you cannot safely apply to your fellow-man : ; — “ Infernal villain,” “ hypocrite,” “ impostor,” “frozen snake,” “rogue and rascal,” “dishonest man,” “ man of straw,” “ itchy old toad,” “ gross insulter of twojladies,” “ leprous knave ”; and you must not call a solicitor “ an honest lawyer.” The law of journalistic etiquette is somewhat mixed. You must not call a brother journalist “ a libellous editor,” but you may call the paper “the most vulgar, ignorant, and scurrilous journal ever published in Great Britain.” It is libellous to impute to the editor and proprietor of a paper that in disseminating the sacred cause of Christianity among the Chinese he was an impostor, and had published a fictitious subscription list. One indignant litigant, who was called a “ Man Friday,” lost his case because the judge said_ “ that imputed no crime at all. The ‘ Man Friday ’ we all know was a most respectable man, although black, and black men have' not yet been denounced as criminals.” In one case a statue was declared a libel, and another gentleman who fixed up a g Blows against his neighbor’s door found he had to pay for his joke. Another man was ingenious enough to set up a lamp on the wall ad joining the plaintiff’s house, and kept it burning in the daytime, thereby inducing the passers-by to believe that the plaintiff’s house was not what it should be. Held a trespass on the wall and a libel in effigy. A gentleman told a good joke in company with an editor j the latter published the joke, and had to pay £lO for his breach of confidence. I have to avoid all reference to safe and unsafe libels on women. The law might well be amended in their favor.