A Treatise on the Law of Slander, Libel, Scandalum Magnatum, and False Rumours: Including the Rules which Regulate Intellectual Communications Affecting the Characters of Individuals and the Interests of the Public : with a Description of the Practice and Pleadings in Personal Actions, Informations, Indictments, Attachments for Contempts, &c. Connected with the Subject

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W. Clarke, 1813 - Libel and slander - 688 pages

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Page 635 - That, on every such trial, the jury sworn to try the issue may give a general verdict of Guilty or Not Guilty upon the whole Matter put in issue upon such indictment or information ; and shall not be required or directed, by the court or judge before whom such indictment or information...
Page 320 - After non-assumpsit pleaded, and a verdict for the plaintiff, it was moved in arrest of judgment that the plaintiff could not bring his action, for he was a stranger to the consideration.
Page 8 - ... there can be no religion. The remedy against these evils is to punish the authors; for it is yet allowed that every society may punish, though not prevent, the publication of opinions which that society shall think pernicious. But this punishment, though it may crush the author, promotes the book ; and it seems not more reasonable to leave the right of printing unrestrained because writers may be afterwards censured, than it would be to sleep with doors unbolted because by our laws we can hang...
Page 635 - An Act to remove Doubts respecting the Functions of Juries in Cases of Libel. [AD 1792.] " WHEREAS doubts have arisen whether on the trial of an indictment or information for the making or publishing any libel, where an issue or issues are joined between the king and the defendant or defendants, on the plea of not guilty pleaded, it be competent to the jury impanelled to try the same to give their verdict upon the whole matter in issue...
Page 625 - The Principles of Government, in a Dialogue between a Gentleman and a farmer,'* with intent to incite the.
Page 8 - If nothing may be published but what civil authority shall have previously approved, power must always be the standard of truth : if every dreamer of innovations may propagate his projects, there can be no settlement; if every murmurer at government may diffuse discontent, there can be no peace ; and if every sceptick in theology may teach his follies, there can be no religion.
Page 272 - Liberty of criticism must be allowed, or we should have neither purity of taste nor of morals. Fair discussion is essentially necessary to the truth of history and the advancement of science. That publication, therefore, I shall never consider as a libel which has for its object, not to injure the reputation of any individual, but to correct misrepresentations of fact, to refute sophistical reasoning, to expose a vicious taste in literature, or to censure what is hostile to morality.
Page 517 - Of all monarchs, indeed, since the revolution, the successor of George the Third will have the finest opportunity of becoming nobly popular.
Page 523 - Every freeman has an undoubted right to lay what sentiments he pleases before the public: to forbid this, is to destroy the freedom of the press ; but, if he publishes what is improper, mischievous or illegal, he must take the consequence of his own temerity.
Page 625 - But where the act is itself unlawful, as in the case of a libel, the PROOF of justification or excuse lies on the defendant ; and in failure thereof, the law implies a criminal intent.

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