Calling a Man a Liar.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XVLI, Issue 10, 6 September 1911, Page 51

Calling a Man a Liar.

The other day a resident in Louisville, Kentucky, expressed his opinion to another man that he was a dirty liar, and was promptly knocked down. He commenced an action for assault, but lost the case. The judge declared from the Bench that to call another man a liar was to deliver him a blow, and honourably discharged the defendant. It is justifiable defence in many of the American States to claim that the man you have assaulted has first called you a liar. A bill containing such a provision was introduced in the Texas Legislature some years ago. and has not yet been repealed. The Senator who introduced the bill declared that lie based it on a law which makes the offensive use of the word a misdemeanour punishable by a £5 fine, tailing a man a liar is not only an offence against the law' in Virginia; it is a crime. There is a law on the Statute Books of that State, which reads as follows:—"If any person shall, in the presence or hearing of another, curse or abuse such person or use any violently abusive language to such person concerning himself or any of his female relatives in circumstances reasonably calculated to provoke a breach of the peace, he shall be deemed guilty of misdemeanour, and on conviction shall be fined not less than 5/, nor more than £6.” To call a man a liarin Georgia is slander, for which one may be punished by a fine of £2OO, or imprisonment for a year, or both. The defendant has the right, however, to prove his charge and go clear. On the criminal side of the courts the law holds, as it does in Kentucky, that the lie constitutes the first blow and justifies

violent response. In Arkansas the use of the epithet is a misdemeanour punishable by a fine. In Mississippi it is not specifically mentioned in the laws, but all insulting words are made civilly actionable. Tn South Carolina it is not a crime, but may be used as a basis of civil action for defamation of character. In North Carolina the user of the epithet and the man to whom it is applied are held equally guilty in eases of assault anil battery. But every State is careful to warn the public that "all words which, from their usual construction and common acceptation are construed as insults and tend to violence and breach of the peace shall be actionable.”