The Manawatu Herald. THURSDAY. JUNE 25, 1908. THE LAW OF LIBEL.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 402, 25 June 1908, Page 2

The Manawatu Herald. THURSDAY. JUNE 25, 1908. THE LAW OF LIBEL.

Referring to the recent case in which a person who was libelled recovered damages from a bookseller, the Christchurch Press says: “ It cannot be generally known that not only is the printer, publisher, or editor of a newspaper responsible for a libel which it contains, but that, legally, speaking a person who sells a paper knowing it to contain defamatory matter, or who even shows it to a third party is considered to have “ published ” the libel, and may be cast in damages accordingly. The action will do good if it has the effect of making newsagents and booksellers throughout the colony more careful as to the class of literature which they sell to the public. It is true that even an ordinarily well-conducted newspaper may, through inadvertence, publish' libellous matter, but it would require very strong evidence indeed to induce a jury to award damages against a newsvendor in such a case. If, however, a shopkeeper chooses to sell publications which avowedly deal in scurrility and other objectionable matter, he must necessarily incur some risk, aud it is well that this should be understood/ The presiding judge said :—The only defence open was that the defendant did not know, and ought not to have known, that the paper contained the article complained of, but the evidence of the witnesses disproved! that. The article spoke for itself, and apart from its abusive brutality there was the imputation of financial dishonesty against Boxshall. Qn the question of damage his Honor said that the defendant was in a different position to the proprietor or publisher of the journal, but there was no reasonable ground for suggesting that if a man was libelled he should not be at liberty to select some person actually guilty of the publication to proceed against, and to vindicate his character in the place where he resided. A man who undertook the distribution of such a paper as Wellington Truth took the risk of dissemin- t ating any libellous articles.; Whether he was idemnified or not I was another matter. |j