LIBEL ACTIONS.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2541, 13 May 1881, Page 2

LIBEL ACTIONS.

An Auckland correspondent of the “ N.Z. Times” says :—The libel epidemic has set in hot and strong, and there is scarcely a journal in Auckland which has not got its “little case” in hand. As for the proprietor of the “ Free Lance,” he is in possession of a string of wrPs —eight or so ; but being a perfect glutton at that sort of thing, actually felt aggrieved that his adversary, Mr W. L. Rees, had not made the baker’s dozen. He has been committed for trial. Whatever the merits ot the affair, Mr Bees is scarcely likely to find in Mr Wickham so profitable a subject as Mr George Jones, jun., or the preparing of the case re the Native ploughmen on the West Coast. However, Mr Hees will get his law somewhat cheap, and is scarcely likely to reflect that what is fun to him may be the death of newspaper proprietors. Mr Hurst, M.H.E., has also arranged to take the “ Lance” man in revise (when he has been put through Mr Eees’s legal mill) on the vital question as to whether his “ Bertie Severna ” was lampblacked or greased at the late Agricultural Show. The unfortunate Wickham had the option of “ saving his bacon ” by making a full and unreserved retraction of his observations on the porcine species, but being under the impression that he might as well be hung for Hurst’s pig as Ree’s lamb, he has declined the invitation, and there is consequently more legal trouble brewing in the journalistic camp.