EVENING POST LIBEL CASE.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume X, Issue 1837, 25 January 1888, Page 3

EVENING POST LIBEL CASE.

(t»Btt PBBSS ASSOCIATION.)

WELLINGTON, January 24. The proprietors of the Evening Poet were the defendants in an action for libel Krhieh was heard itx the Supreme Court to-day. The plaintiff (John Martin, late licensee of the City Hotel) sought to recover £1000 damages for injury alleged to have "been euitained in contequence of the jrablioation of an article in tbe Post of the Ith NOV4 lut, with reference, to the death

ot plaintiff's wife, who committed suicide in .November last. The plaintiff alleged that the article imputed to him — " that he was a man devoid of common humanity " ; " that plaintiff was a habitual drunkard " ; " that plaintiff was not a proper person to hold a publican's license " ; that he wkb callous, besotted with drink, of drnnkeu habits, and an unfit person to be a licensed publican "— was false, malicious, and defamatory of plaintiff; that in consequence plaintiffs interest in the City Hotel was depreciated and plaintiff otherwise injured in his business. Defendants admitted publication, but denied that the words in the article had any other or further meaning than tbe ordinary and natural meaning of such words, or that the plaintiff had sustained any Bpecial damage. The proceedings in connection with the inquest were then set out, and it was pleaded that the matter was one of public interest ; that the article was a fair and honest comment upon the evidence, and that it was published without defamatory intent. The defendants further pleaded that the article was, and is, true in substance and in fact, according to tbe true and natural meaning of the words used, and that the report of the proceedings at the inquest and the report thereof was made fairly and in a hona fide manner for the public good, without any sinister or malicious motive, and in a hona fide belief of the truth thereof and every partthereof. After an hour's consultation, the epecial jury gave a verdict for the defendants, with costs on the highest Bcale.