A Digest of the Law of Libel and Slander: With the Evidence, Procedure, and Practice, Both in Civil and Criminal Cases, and Precedents of Pleadings (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from A Digest of the Law of Libel and Slander: With the Evidence, Procedure, and Practice, Both in Civil and Criminal Cases, and Precedents of Pleadings

Every reported case decided in England or Ireland during the last fifteen years has been noticed. Every case reported in England during this century has, I believe, been considered and mentioned, unless it has either been distinctly overruled or has become obsolete by a change in the practice of the Courts or by the repeal of some statute on which it depended. The earlier cases have been more sparingly cited, but I think no case of im portance since 1558 has been overlooked. The leading American decisions have also been referred to, and whenever the American law differs from our own, the distinction has been pointed out and explained. Canadian and Australian decisions have also been quoted, whenever the English law was doubtful or silent on the point. The cases have been brought down to the early part of January, 1881.

It would be of but little use to place all these decisions before the reader and leave him to draw his own conclusions. A huge collection of reported cases piled one on the top of the other is not a legal treatise, any more than a tumbled pile of bricks is a house. I have throughout attempted to strike a balance, as it were, and state the net result of the authorities. But this is a process requiring the greatest care and much expenditure of time. When I commenced this book in 1876, I did not at all realize the amount of labour which was requisite in order to ascertain the law and state it clearly in an abstract form.

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