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ON THE WRONGS CALLED

SLANDER AND LIBEL,

AND ON THE

REMEDY BY CIVIL ACTION FOR THOSE WRONGS,

TO WHICH IS ADDED IN THIS EDITION A CHAPTER ON

MALICIOUS PROSECUTION.

BY JOHN TOWNSHEND.

THIRD EDITION.

NEW YORK:

BAKER, VOORHIS & CO., LAW PUBLISHERS,

66 NASSAU STREET.

1877.

L37346
MAY 16 1951

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year eighteen hundred and seventy-seven, by

JOHN TOWNSHEND,

In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.

BAKER & GODWIN, PRINTERS

No, 25 Park Low, N.

PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION.

IN introducing a third edition of the following essay, I desire to return my unfeigned thanks for the many flattering notices of previous editions. One kind friend expressed regret that so much labor had been bestowed in the endeavor to treat scientifically a subject which does not admit of scientific treatment, and another described my text as not so much an exposition of the law as it is, as of the law as it probably will be. In reference to these remarks, I hope and believe my labor has not been altogether fruitless, and the care taken in every instance to distinguish my suggestion from the received rule of law, will prevent the reader confounding the one with the other. It is gratifying to me to find that many of my suggestions have been legitimized by judicial sanction.

I disclaim innovation; my aim has been to elicit the true rule of decision on some leading points in the law of libel, and present them with more distinctness than had been theretofore attempted.

among

other things, I have endeavored to demonstrate :

Thus,

I. The gist of an action for slander or libel is the pecuniary

injury.

II. The malice necessary to maintain an action for slander or libel is only the absence of a legal excuse for making the publication.

III. The phrases malice in fact and malice in law do not mean different kinds of malice, but describe only different kinds of proof.

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