Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 12.pdf/566

 The Law of the Land. lation through the world from mouth to mouth. If you slander a fellow in your mind and never let it come out by way of the mouth, it is all right legally, but if you cannot control the tongue, it is all wrong. The question asks itself. Suppose you are the one to whom the publication is made, can you run and tell your next neighbor all about it, swap it for something the neighbor has to tell. If you repeat the words, adopting them as your own you will be slandering as much as the one you received it from and may be held to answer in damages. One court, however, has held that he who hears a slander may repeat it, if he does so in the same words and gives his authority at the same time. For instance, you may say that John Smith said yesterday in my presence, in front of Jim Brown's store, that Bill Jones was a thief, I don't know anything about it myself, I'm only saying what John Smith said. There is always one way to escape answer ing for your slander, and that is by proving what you said was true when action is brought against you. Plead justification. Bea'rd the lion in his den. Take the bull by the horns. It is a bold game The burden will be upon you of proving the truth and you will have to make the proof so clear

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that if the man was being criminally tried upon the charge he would be convicted. If you slip up in your proof in any way your failure will probably cost you more money in the damages the jury will give against you by reason of your slander. If, on the other hand you win, the thief will be a thief and it will not be any tort of the tongue to have published the fact that a thief 's a thief. It is very much feared that if the tongue had its way — full sway — we would come to be a nation of banderlogs. Queer, very queer it is that as we approach a condition of deaf muteness we grow in wisdom. By the way, while talking about deaf mutes, no case can be found where a court has yet tackled the question of the tort or slander of a deaf mute and its publication. That will likely furnish some interesting points, for instance the deaf mute may have gone into a community to commit his tort where no one quite understood the rapid sign man ual of his hands. Or suppose the alleged tort would consist in gestures, going up to one and angrily shaking his fist in the oth er's face, and slapping his pocket from whence the missing article departed. What will the decision be? We commend it to the judge who shall solve it.