"Libel" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... this time the offender was arrested. The gentleman thereupon wrote to the Public Prosecutor, blaming him for not having taken action on the first occasion. The Public Prosecutor regarded this as libellous, and actually brought an action for libel against the philanthropic gentleman. Happily the Public Prosecutor lost his case; but none the less, in view of what happened, a good citizen may well hesitate in future to take similar action in the public interest, if, for some trifling excess ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... Eton were simply scurrilous. There's a libel action in every sentence. How do you like this place from what ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... many rejected scraps of dialogue that lie about, like the chippings of a Phidias, in this workshop of wit, there are some precious enough to be preserved, at least, as relics. For instance,—"She is one of those, who convey a libel in a frown, and wink a reputation down." The following touch of costume, too, in Sir Peter's description of the rustic dress of Lady Teazle before he married her:—"You forget when a little wire ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... would get up a libel case, and advertise himself a little more by that method!" said Zegota contemptuously; "And besides, a newspaper needs unlimited capital behind it. We have ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... quotidienne, "our profits arise from a new combination. The journal costs twenty francs; we sell it for twenty-three and a half. A million subscribers make three millions and a half of profits; there are my figures; contradict me by figures, or I will bring an action for libel." The reader may fancy the scene takes place in England, where many such a swindling prospectus has obtained credit ere now. At Plate 33, Robert is still a journalist; he brings to the editor of a paper an article of ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... of the libel against the defender refers to his conduct as a clergyman and a Christian. He was charged in the libel with the most gross and vulgar behavior, with drunkenness, blasphemy, and impiety; yet all the evidence which the appellants ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... are lots of people about with red whiskers and low receding foreheads, and they'll all bring actions of libel. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 19, 1891 • Various
... by excessive penalities. Men were put in the pillory for perjury, libel, and the like. Forgers, robbers, incendiaries, poachers, and mutilators of cattle were sent to the gallows. Ignorance and brutality prevailed amongst large sections of the people both in town and country, and the privileged classes, ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... an essay upon the Law of Libel, and say when a paper, (1) should apologise, (2) fight it out, and, (3) settle it out ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 102, April 16, 1892 • Various
... that is to say, Miss Bailey was talking earnestly and volubly, and Mrs. Falconer was listening. Mrs. Falconer had reduced the practice of listening to a fine art. She was a thin, wistful-faced mite of a woman, with sad brown eyes, and with snow-white hair that was a libel on her fifty-five years and girlish step. Nobody in Lindsay ever felt very well acquainted with Mrs. Falconer, in spite of the fact that she had lived among them forty years. She kept between her and ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... period Thomas Cooper was convicted of libel. He was thrown into prison. Priestley regarded him as a rising man in the Country.[7] He said the act was the last blow of the Federal party "which is ...
— Priestley in America - 1794-1804 • Edgar F. Smith
... of the first in the world. This is something for a country with a population of only five-and-a-half millions to boast of, and it is not by any means the only thing. We have been spoken of as a people wanting enterprise—a good-natured, phlegmatic set—but it is libel disproved by half a century's progress. We have successfully carried out some of the grandest enterprises on this continent. At Montreal we have the finest docks in America. Our canals are unequalled; our country is intersected by railroads; every town and village ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight
... her, but which, I hope, she will have the goodness to forgive. I was also induced to it in my own defence; many hundred copies of it being dispersed abroad without my knowledge, or consent: so that every one gathering new faults, it became at length a libel against me; and I saw, with some disdain, more nonsense than either I, or as bad a poet, could have crammed into it, at a month's warning; in which time it was wholly written, and not since revised. After this, I cannot, without injury ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... "I've seen all sorts and sizes and colors and conditions of crooks, up and down the line, in my time and generation, but take it from me you're a libel and an outrage on the whole profession. Why, you crazy he-angel, you'd break their hearts just to look at you!" And he grinned. At a moment like that, he grinned, with a sort of gay and light-hearted diablerie. ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... a century after this there appeared in Germany a book, now called by Catholics an infamous libel, the 'Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum.' 'The obscure men,' supposed to be the writers of these epistles, are monks or students of theology. The letters themselves are written in dog-Latin—a burlesque of the language in which ecclesiastical people then addressed each other. They are sketches, satirical, ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... the natives by foreigners, and their singularly inert condition; and after somewhat too severely denouncing the undeniable errors of the mission, Kotzebue, the Russian navigator, says, "A religion like this, which forbids every innocent pleasure, and cramps or annihilates every mental power, is a libel on the divine founder of Christianity. It is true that the religion of the missionaries has, with a great deal of evil, effected some good. It has restrained the vices of theft and incontinence; but it has given birth to ignorance, ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... mortal, and slanderous poet, thy name Shall no longer appear in the records of Fame; Dost not know that old Mansfield, who writes like the Bible, Says, the more 'tis a truth, sir, the more 'tis a libel! ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... with casual companions in taverns and chophouses was enough in his present condition to confirm him in his belief that self-destruction was lawful. Evidently he was perfectly insane, for he could not take up a newspaper without reading in it a fancied libel on himself. First he bought laudanum, and had gone out into the fields with the intention of swallowing it, when the love of life suggested another way of escaping the dreadful ordeal. He might sell all he had, fly to France, change his religion, and bury himself in ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... during this stay in Sydney that Mr. Stevenson wrote his famous defense of Father Damien. When he realized that its publication might result in a suit for libel and the loss of all he had in the world, he thought it only right to ask for a vote of the family, for without their concurrence he would not take such a step. The vote was unanimously in favour of the publication. When the pamphlets were ready, ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... produced, were beheaded in defiance of law and justice. Russell died with the fortitude of a Christian, Sidney with the fortitude of a Stoic. Some active politicians of meaner rank were sent to the gallows. Many quitted the country. Numerous prosecutions for misprision of treason, for libel, and for conspiracy were instituted. Convictions were obtained without difficulty from Tory juries, and rigorous punishments were inflicted by courtly judges. With these criminal proceedings were joined civil proceedings scarcely less formidable. Actions were brought against persons ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... prayer from Mr Turnbull, the meeting separated in a state of considerable excitement. Thomas half expected to hear of an action for libel, but Robert knew better than venture upon that. Besides, no damages could be ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... flock, At old Rebecca's cottage gave a knock. "Good morrow, dame, I mean not any libel, But in your dwelling have you got a Bible?" "A Bible, sir?" exclaimed she in a rage, "D'ye think I've turned a Pagan in my age? Here, Judith, and run upstairs, my dear, 'Tis in the drawer, be quick and bring it here." The girl return'd with Bible in a minute, Not dreaming for a moment ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... are avenged! The man humiliated and degraded you. He insulted me also, and did his best to make me resign my portfolio and put my private life on its defence. You set out to undo the effects of his libel and to punish him for his outrage. You've done it! You have avenged yourself for both of us! It's all your work! You are magnificent! And now let us draw the net closer ... let us hold him fast ... let us go ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... is not allowed to caricature on the comic stage (23) or otherwise libel the People, because (24) they do not care to hear themselves ill spoken of. But if any one has a desire to satirise his neighbour he has full leave to do so. And this because they are well aware that, as a general ...
— The Polity of the Athenians and the Lacedaemonians • Xenophon
... now Barker has a libel suit pending against The Patriot, while the carbolic mat has not yet been introduced to ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... do you preach? What "Bible" is your Bible? There's worse than wormwood in your speech, You livid, living libel! ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... Giles Mompesson. "To the first—vague and general accusations brought against me and my co-patentee, by this branded traitor, who, having been publicly punished for falsehood and libel, cannot be received as a witness, I have deigned no answer, conceiving such accusations cannot be for a moment entertained by you, most gracious Prince. But to this specific charge, I give a flat denial; and demand ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... "It's a libel—take that, you naughty boy!" she cried, and slapped him playfully on the hand. "Ephie, love, how shall ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... Law of Unfair Business Competition. Including chapters on trade secrets and confidential business relations; unfair interference with contracts; libel and slander of articles of merchandise, trade names and business credit and reputation. ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... upon the courts, magistrates, or any others that had taken part in the prosecutions. It was necessary to avoid putting any thing into writing, with their names attached, which could in any way be tortured into a libel. Parris lets fall expressions which show that he was on the watch for something of the kind to seize upon, to transfer the movement from the church to the courts. Entirely unaccustomed to public speaking, these three farmers had to meet assemblages composed of their ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... enactments was Fox's Libel Bill. In May 1791 that statesman had proposed to the House of Commons to subject cases of libel to the award of juries, not of judges. Pitt warmly approved the measure, maintaining that, far from protecting libellers, it would have ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... name as the virtues of the man within, sometimes, too, his genealogical tree is appended. Such expressions as "no cheating here" or "I cannot deceive," are common, but, in nearly every case, belie the character of the proprietor, who is a living libel on the word honesty. Honesty! old Shylock even would ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... numerous inquiries and several threats of prosecution for libel in consequence of what I have written in regard to impostors who (for money) perform tricks of legerdemain and attribute them to the spirits of deceased persons, I have only to say, I have no malice or antipathies to gratify ...
— The Humbugs of the World • P. T. Barnum
... to be swallowed by another French marriage, if the Lord forbid not the banes by letting her Majestie see the sin and punishment thereof (1579). Hallam states that the book was far from being a libel on the Virgin Queen, but that it was written with great affection. However, it was pronounced to be "a fardell of false reports, suggestions, and manifest lies." Its author and Page, the bookseller, were brought into the open market at Westminster, ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... that some of the commentators of Shakspeare have thought it incumbent on their gallantry to express their utter contempt for the scene between Richard and Lady Anne, as a monstrous and incredible libel on your sex? ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... of society was inevitable, and he eagerly ranged himself on the people's side. He had an idea of publishing a series of poems adapted expressly to commemorate their circumstances and wrongs. He wrote a few; but, in those days of prosecution for libel, they could not be printed. They are not among the best of his productions, a writer being always shackled when he endeavours to write down to the comprehension of those who could not understand or feel a highly imaginative style; but they show his earnestness, ...
— Notes to the Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley • Mary W. Shelley
... of the word character as meaning credit, reputation, honor. Hence honor, once lost, can never be recovered; unless the loss rested on some mistake, such as may occur if a man is slandered or his actions viewed in a false light. So the law provides remedies against slander, libel, and even insult; for insult though it amounts to no more than mere abuse, is a kind of summary slander with a suppression of the reasons. What I mean may be well put in the Greek phrase—not quoted from any author—[Greek: estin hae loidoria ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer: The Wisdom of Life • Arthur Schopenhauer
... Nonconformist ministers are never seen in the slums; well, that is a libel! But I should like to ask why it is that the Roman Catholic priest is seen there more than the Nonconformist minister? Because the one man's congregation is there, and the other man's is not—which, being translated into other words, is this: the religion of Jesus Christ mostly keeps ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... sisters, we'll see if you can't! You will put in every missing rivet, replace every flawy plate, and make every machine perfect, or I'll smash your little two-by-four concern so flat the bankruptcy courts won't find enough to tack a libel notice on. Now go back ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... contained in a rare pamphlet of four leaves, preserved in the very curious library of the Society of Friends at Devonshire House, Bishopsgate. It is entitled, 'A lying wonder discovered, and the strange and terrible news from Cambridge proved false; which false news is published in a libel, concerning a wicked slander cast upon a Quaker; but the author of the said libel was ashamed to subscribe his name to it. Also, this contains an answer to John Bunion's paper, touching the said ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... mounted the throne, to pardon all who had been convicted under it. But before he left the White House he attempted to put down Federal opposition in the same way. Judges were impeached; United States attorneys brought libel suits against editors, and even prosecuted such men as Judge Reeve and the Rev. Mr. Backus of Connecticut. It was a pet doctrine of Jefferson that one generation had no right to bind a succeeding one; hence every constitution and all laws should ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... accusation, without a shadow of proof; and remember that a libel uttered in the presence of a third party is ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... down again, and once more turned his attention to that excellent French illustrated weekly without which no officers' mess in France is complete. Lest I be run in for libel, I will refrain from further information as to its title and general effect ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... herself may have sat upon the Poet's knee, as a bright innocent little child. Infinite pity, yet also infinite rigour of law: it is so Nature is made; it is so Dante discerned that she was made. What a paltry notion is that of his Divine Comedy's being a poor splenetic impotent terrestrial libel; putting those into Hell whom he could not be avenged upon on earth! I suppose if ever pity, tender as a mother's, was in the heart of any man, it was in Dante's. But a man who does not know rigour cannot pity either. His very pity will be cowardly, ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... weaknesses in the character of the Emperor. For this dangerous undertaking he was three times brought to trial for lese majeste, and spent a year as a prisoner in a Prussian fortress. In 1907 he figured in a libel suit brought by General Kuno von Moltke, late Military Governor of Berlin, who, together with Count Zu Eulenburg and Count Wilhelm von Hohenau, one of the Emperor's Adjutants, had been mentioned by Harden in his paper as members of the so-called Camarilla or "Round ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... Serbia from 1897 till 1900, in his book The End of a Dynasty, throws much light on the events that led up to the final catastrophe. It is highly significant that after its publication he was sentenced to six months' imprisonment, not for libel or false statements, but "on a charge of having acted injuriously to Serbia by publishing State secrets." His account is therefore in all probability correct. He begins by relating Prince Alexander's visit to Montenegro shortly after the termination of the Regency. Here the astute Prince ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith
... expect me to respond for the Army. I can't speak for the ladies thereof because they never gave me a chance to practise (oh! slander!), and I can't drink for the men because they insist on doing it for themselves (another libel!). In fact, after being here five days as the guest of our hospitable friends at the club, I'm wondering how any one ever could see anything to drink to in the army. Life there is a fearful grind. In the lofty and inspired language of Canon Kingsley,—if not cannon, he was at least a big ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... in his own style. The tourists—a race who cannot live without rambling through the same continental roads, which they libel for their roughness every year; the same hotels, which they libel for their discomforts; and the same table-d'hotes, which they libel as the perfection of bad cookery, and barefaced chicane—pronounced ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... imagination is the British officer. Men call him stupid, who would themselves have no chance of passing the intellectual test which every young officer has to go through. Sitting safe and smug at home they libel the courage and devotion of the gallant gentleman who is giving his life for them. Perhaps against these may be placed the word of an old soldier, who for thirty years has seen the British officer, as fighter, diplomatist, and administrator, in all parts of the world, ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband
... else has been mixing my name up with any scandal about females, I'll have him up for slander and libel and damages as sure as ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... Tribune, the city editor of which, Mr. Shanks, was one of my neighbors, but was told, with more frankness than flattery, that I was "too green." Very likely Mr. Shanks had been observing my campaign against the beats and thought me a dangerous man in those days of big libel suits. I should have done the same thing. But a few weeks after he changed his mind and invited me to come on the paper and try my hand. So I joined the staff of the Tribune five years after its great editor had died, a beaten and crushed ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... ruling factions. In this contest for life and death, the more furious, of course, triumphed; such is the history of rabble revolution in all ages. The Girondist with his eloquence naturally fell before the Jacobin with his libel; the Girondist, affecting a deference for law, was trampled by the Jacobin, who valued nothing but force; the tongue and the pen were extinguished by the dagger; and this day was the consummation. A ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... stores, packages, and places of deposite of such person to be searched; and if any such spirituous liquor or wine is found, the goods, boats, packages, and peltries of such persons shall be seized and delivered to the proper officer, and shall be proceeded against by libel in the proper court, and forfeited, one half to the use of the informer, and the other half to the use of the United States; and if such person is a trader, his licence shall be revoked and his bond put in suit. And it shall moreover be lawful for any person ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... Francisco, they started a commotion at the city hall. Then Mark Twain let himself go more vigorously than ever. He sent letters to the "Enterprise" that made even the printers afraid. Goodman, however, was fearless, and let them go in, word for word. The libel suit which the San Francisco chief of police brought against the Enterprise advertised the ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... my private office in the Administration Building with Dr. Hans Fooss—he and I being too busy dissecting an unusually fine specimen of Dingue to go to the Rolling Stone Inn for luncheon—when Professor Lezard rushed in with the scandalous libel still sizzling in ...
— Police!!! • Robert W. Chambers
... Teutonic word rick is still preserved in the termination of our English bishoprick. Stubbs, in his libel, The Discovery of a Gaping Gulf, &c. imprinted 1579, says, "The queen has the kingrick in her own power."—Notes ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 534 - 18 Feb 1832 • Various
... "Upon the late Viscount Stair and his family, by Sir William Hamilton of Whitelaw. The marginals by William Dunlop, writer in Edinburgh, a son of the Laird of Househill, and nephew to the said Sir William Hamilton." There was a bitter and personal quarrel and rivalry betwixt the author of this libel, a name which it richly deserves, and Lord President Stair; and the lampoon, which is written with much more malice than art, bears the ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... desperate characters, and had used such terrible language against his sacred majesty the king that, as a loyal officer, I had sworn they should not speak again until they were safely jailed in St. Malo. The captain's face was distorted with rage as he listened to this libel: he flung his manacled hands about and made frantic efforts to speak, which Joe's gag was ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... being, as he told me himself, the illegitimate son of a murderer. I had not read the work; but the writer who could make such an absurd accusation, must have been strangely ignorant of the very circumstances from which he derived the materials of his own libel. When Lord Byron mentioned the subject to me, and that he was consulting Sir Vicary Gibbs with the intention of prosecuting the publisher and the author, I advised him, as well as I could, to desist simply because the allegations referred to well-known ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... antiquities, and grouth of the classical and warrelike shipping of this Island: as namely, first of the great nauie of that victorious Saxon prince king Edgar, mentioned by Florentius Wigorniensis, Roger Houeden, Rainulph of Chester, Matthew of Westminster, Flores historiarum, & in the libel of English policie, pag. 224. and 225. of this present volume. [Footnote: Original edition.] Of which Authors some affirme the sayd fleet to haue consisted of 4800. others of 4000. some others of 3600. ships: ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation, v. 1, Northern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... the press. There is nothing peculiar in the law of libels to withdraw it from the jurisdiction of the jury. The twelve judges in their opinion in the House of Lords (April, 1792), admitted that the general criminal law of England was the law of libel. And by the general criminal law of England, the office of the jury is judicial. "They only are the judges," as Lord Somers observes (Essay on the Power and Duty of Grand Juries, p. 7), "from whose sentence ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... St. Leger Smith. "What a knowing set out!" squeaked Johnson secundus. "Mammy-sick!" growled Barlow primus. This last exclamation was, however, a scandalous libel, for certainly no being ever stood in a pedagogue's presence with more perfect sang froid, and with a bolder front, than did, at ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... the law. Thus, for example, with a criminal code which carries its rigour to the length of atrocity, we have a criminal judicature which often carries its lenity to the length of perjury. Our law of libel is the most absurdly severe that ever existed, so absurdly severe that, if it were carried into full effect, it would be much more oppressive than a censorship. And yet, with this severe law of libel, we have a press which practically is as free as the air. In 1819 the Ministers complained ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... so, Dr. Milton found himself served with a writ for libel. As a result, nothing more was heard ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... organs are a libel upon our common nature. And, though a scrupulous and exact philosopher will perhaps confess that he has little distinct knowledge as to the design with which "the earth and all that is therein" were made, ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... our English Verres (or, at least, our Verres as to the situation, though not the guilt), Mr. Hastings; in many of Mr. Erskine's addresses to juries, where political rights were at stake; in Sir James Mackintosh's defence of Peltier for a libel upon Napoleon, when he went into a history of the press as applied to politics—(a liberal inquiry, but which, except in the remotest manner, could not possibly bear upon the mere question of fact before the jury); and in many other splendid instances, which have really ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... lay it by in lavender; and knowing of a great man in the gold-lace trade, as far away as Scarborough, they sent it by a fishing-smack to him, with people whom they knew thoroughly. That was the last of it ever known here. The man swore a manifest that he never saw it, and threatened them with libel; and the smack was condemned, and all her hands impressed, because of some trifle she happened to carry; and nobody knows any more of it. But two of the buttons had fallen off, and good mother had put them by, to give a last finish to the coat herself; and when I grew up, and had to go to sea ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... said, wiping a swollen face on the handkerchief Harriet supplied. "But oh—I don't believe it, and my father will sue them for libel, you see if he doesn't! My mother's the purest and sweetest and best woman ALIVE—and I'll KILL any one who says ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... not, however, libel even the Sandy Desert, by producing the impression that it is all barren and comfortless. Though far more difficult to travel over than the Hamadah, it possesses the inestimable advantage of having water every day once at least. A little after noon, indeed, ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... came, and I was no longer in pawn at Milan. But blessings on the head of that worthy old Scot, who must long ago have gone over to the majority! At least he nobly redeemed the character of his countrymen from the libel which makes the name of ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... those engravings only yesterday," said Mr. Ellsworth, anxious to engage Elinor's attention; "they almost amount to a libel on childhood; they give the idea of mincing, affected little creatures, at the very age when children are almost invariably natural and interesting. I should quarrel very much with a portrait of my little girl, in the ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... Then there's the fact that I struck him. No, taking everything into consideration, we'll let it be. I don't feel any animosity against him, not half as much as if he'd stabbed me behind the back with a libel— He did tell a lie about me to-night but it was the stupid sort of lie a child might have told. The man has his good points as well as his bad and I don't want to ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... is the unreliability of many witnesses and their shocking readiness to perjure themselves. It is always possible to manufacture testimony at small expense. While the criminal libel suit brought against certain members of the staff of the newspaper El Renacimiento, which libelled me, was in progress the judge showed me the opinion of the two Filipino assessors [497] in one of the cases and told me that it was written by an attorney for the defence. ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... portrait painter. She goes into details about the mental anguish that has almost prostrated her since she discovered the fiendish assault on her privacy, and she announces how she has begun action for criminal libel and started suit for damages to the tune of half ...
— Torchy As A Pa • Sewell Ford
... Professor at the Melbourne University, on a holiday trip to New Zealand, has just told me an amusing anecdote, for the literal truth of which he vouches. A couple of young Englishmen fresh from Oxford came to Melbourne in the course of a trip round the world to open up their minds! For fear of a libel suit I may at once say I am not alluding to the Messrs. Chamberlain. They brought letters of introduction to Professor S——, who proposed, according to the custom of the place, to 'show them round.' 'Have you seen the Public Library?' ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... had punished cities which were zealous for the true religion, by taking away their municipal privileges. Julian had, by his flatterers, been called the Just. James was provoked beyond endurance. Johnson was prosecuted for a libel, convicted, and condemned to a fine which he had no means of paying. He was therefore kept in gaol; and it seemed likely that his confinement would end only with his ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... sated,—that but for the Scarlet Woman he would debauch the Vestal Virgin. I do not believe that Almighty God decreed that one-half the women of this world should be sacrificed upon the unclean altar of Lust that the others might be saved. It is an infamous, a revolting doctrine, a damning libel of the Deity. All the courtesans beneath Heaven's blue concave never caused a single son of Adam's misery to refrain from tempting, so far as he possessed the power, one virtuous ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... interfered with a just and natural estimate of their guilt...As among ourselves, the intent to murder was distinguished by Plato from actual murder...We note that both in Plato and the laws of Athens, libel in the market-place and personality in the theatre were forbidden...Both in Plato and Athenian law, as in modern times, the accomplice of a crime is to be punished as well as the principal...Plato does not allow a witness in a cause to act as a judge of it...Oaths ...
— Laws • Plato
... we would commit a libel on French honor and on French patriotism if we assumed that any step on our part could have prevented her from trying to redress the state of affairs produced by the ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... as libel nowadays in the world," answered the Cardinal, "And we have to confront the fact that we have incurred the displeasure, and have also invited the vengeance of the Sovereign Pontiff. Thus ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... Edinburgh, and educated at the High School and University of that city; was admitted to the Scotch bar in 1800; excluded from promotion in Scotland by his liberal principles, he joined the English bar in 1808, speedily acquired a reputation as a lawyer for the defence in Crown libel actions, and, by his eloquence in the cause of Queen Caroline, 1820, won universal popular favour; entering Parliament in 1810, he associated with the Whig opposition, threw himself into the agitation for the abolition of slavery, the cause of education, and law reform; became Lord ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... have been given, have afterwards returned to the thoughts of those who have had influence, have been considered as their own ideas, and have been acted upon. The conduct of Captain Tartar may be considered as a libel on the service—is it not? The fault of Captain Tartar was not in sending them on board, or even putting them in irons as deserters, although, under the circumstances, he might have shown more delicacy. The fault ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat
... at one of Hazlitt's lectures, 'lives in my mind as one of singular beauty and brightness; it had the expression as if he had been looking on some glorious sight.' And this is the idea which Severn's picture of him gives. Even Haydon's rough pen-and-ink sketch of him is better than this 'marble libel,' which I hope will soon be taken down. I think the best representation of the poet would be a coloured bust, like that of the young Rajah of Koolapoor at Florence, which is a lovely ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... then, in the coarsest terms, averred the falsehood of the certificate which had been published, and demanded from the attorney general, and from the government, that Mr. Jay and Mr. King should be indicted for a libel upon himself and his nation. That officer accompanied his refusal to institute this information with the declaration that any other gentleman of the profession, who might approve and advise the attempt, could be at no loss to point out a mode which would ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall
... and he said to me afterwards, with a nod of satisfaction, 'You saw Mr. Wilkes acquiesced.' Wilkes talked with all imaginable freedom of the ludicrous title given to the Attorney-General, Diabolus Regis; adding, 'I have reason to know something about that officer; for I was prosecuted for a libel.' Johnson, who many people would have supposed must have been furiously angry at hearing this talked of so lightly, said not a word. He was now, INDEED, 'a ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... Trial of John Horne, Esq. upon an Information, filed ex officio, by His Majesty's Attorney General, (for a Libel.) Before the Earl of Mansfield, at Guildhall, July 7, 1777. 3s. A Supplement to the Trial, containing the subsequent Proceedings in the Court of ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... between the Duke of Ormond and Eltee. (Oo know who Eltee is, or have oo fordot already?) I have great designs, if I can compass them; but delay is rooted in Eltee's heart; yet the fault is not altogether there, that things are no better. Here is the cursedest libel in verse come out that ever was seen, called The Ambassadress;(7) it is very dull, too; it has been printed three or four different ways, and is handed about, but not sold. It abuses the Queen horribly. The Examiner has cleared me to-day of being ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift
... spiritual guides who in Scotland have lately propounded the monstrous theory that the depreciation of railway scrip is a consequence of railway travelling on Sundays. Let them not, as far as you are concerned, libel the system of nature with their ignorant hypotheses. Looking from the solitudes of thought into this highest of questions, and seeing the puerile attempts often made to solve it, well might the mightiest of ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... man's ground abutting upon his house, which might mend his prospect, but it did not fill his barn." He made however a grateful return to the lord treasurer for this instance of patronage, by composing an answer to a popish libel, entitled "A Declaration of the true Causes of the late Troubles," in which he warmly vindicated the conduct of this minister, of his own father, and of other members of the administration; not forgetting to make a high eulogium on the talents ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... Winstanley; "I can't imagine London society existing for a week on such literary pabulum as 'The Vision of Mirza.' We want something stronger than that. A little scandal about our neighbours, a racy article on field sports, some sharpish hits at the City, a libel or two upon men we know, a social article sailing very near the wind, and one of Addison's papers on cherry-coloured hoods, or breast-knots, patches or powder, thrown in by the way of padding. Our dear Joseph is too purely literary for the ...
— Vixen, Volume I. • M. E. Braddon
... or three acres of the waste, by which the happiness of the poor and the interests of the public would be blended? Can any antiquated feudal right to this useless tract properly supersede the paramount claims of the poor and the public?—From respect to any such right, ought so great a libel on our political economy to be suffered to exist, as a receptacle for the poor in the middle of an uncultivated and unappropriated waste? To dwell further on so mortifying a proof of the fallibility of human wisdom may, however, ...
— A Morning's Walk from London to Kew • Richard Phillips
... his Own Lawyer,'" he said, "giving all that it is necessary for any man to know regarding the laws of his native land, including laws of business, how to draw up legal papers, what constitutes libel, et cetery. This one division alone being worth the whole cost of the book, showing among other things what a paper should print and what it should not. Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art is a marvelous work, including as it does the chapter ...
— Kilo - Being the Love Story of Eliph' Hewlitt Book Agent • Ellis Parker Butler
... but I couldn't help overhearing your last remark, and I think it my duty to set your mind at rest on that score. Selfishness is not your besetting sin, Miss Patty Fairfield, and I can't allow you to libel yourself." ...
— Patty at Home • Carolyn Wells
... men about town, perhaps the most careless, the most indifferent, and the least ferocious, his mother was probably mistaken in her estimate of his resentful feelings. "As for Sir George, he would be for taking the law of the wretch for libel, and then we should be—! I don't know where we should be then; but ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... that the substitute is accepted, I do not mean that it is accepted by, or can be offered to the whole constituency. That would be a libel. There are many of the electors who have a soul above sovereigns, and who, if they could accomplish it, would never drink anything less than claret. These persons are ambitious of being noticed by the family of Honourable ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 455 - Volume 18, New Series, September 18, 1852 • Various
... looking. The lady of his choice, tradition says, was older than he, but this is a base libel. She was not older. She had not yet reached thirty. Scattergood had first encountered her when she came to his hardware store to buy a plow. On that occasion her excellent business judgment and her powers ...
— Scattergood Baines • Clarence Budington Kelland
... which, of course, is a libel on the hearty folk of Avignon. But Elodie was from Marseilles, which naturally has a poor opinion of the other towns of Provence. She also lied for the comforting ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... was worse, even worse than my fears. The article was short, but it was very hateful. It said nothing straight out—the writer had evidently the fear of the law of libel before his eyes as he wrote,—but it hinted and insinuated in a detestable undertone the most vile innuendoes. A Treasury Doctor and a Police Inspector, it said, had lately examined Miss Callingham again, and found her intellect ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen
... fellow-workmen. He returned to Trefusis to say that the tombstone job had ruined him. Trefusis, enraged, wrote an argumentative letter to the "Times," which was not inserted, a sarcastic one to the trades-union, which did no good, and a fierce one to the employers, who threatened to take an action for libel. He had to content himself with setting the man to work again on mantelpieces and other decorative stone-work for use in house property on the Trefusis estate. In a year or two his liberal payments enabled the mason to save sufficient to start as an employer, in which capacity he soon ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... offence. He was indicted on the 24th of February. On the 25th, the Shortest Way was brought under the notice of the House of Commons, and ordered to be burnt by the common hangman. His trial came on in July. He was found guilty of a seditious libel, and sentenced to pay a fine of 200 marks to the Queen, stand three times in the pillory, be imprisoned during the Queen's pleasure, and find sureties for his good ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto
... circumstances, to her husband in Ireland; who, being a giddy, unthinking man, was so much incensed at these insinuations, that, in the first transports of his passion, he sent to his mother a power of attorney, that she might sue for a divorce in his behalf. A libel was thereupon exhibited, containing many scandalous allegations, void of any real foundation in truth; but being unsupported by any manner of proof, it was at length dismissed with costs, after it had depended ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... courts of justice. In the mean time, in order to weaken, since they could not immediately destroy, the liberty of the press, the privilege of Parliament was voted away in all accusations for a seditious libel. The freedom of debate in Parliament itself was no less menaced. Officers of the army, of long and meritorious service, and of small fortunes, were chosen as victims for a single vote, by an exertion of ministerial power, which had been very rarely used, and which is extremely unjust, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... secure in our good names, which is included in the right of personal security, is protected by the law against slander and libel. A slander is a false and malicious report or statement tending to injure another in his reputation or business, and which, if true, would render him unworthy of confidence or employment; or it is the maliciously charging ...
— The Government Class Book • Andrew W. Young
... how to describe the mental atmosphere in which we were working. It would be no libel upon the public opinion upon which we sought to make an impression to say that it really allowed no question to be discussed on its merits. Public opinion on social and economic questions is changing now, but I cannot associate the change with any influence emanating from institutions of higher ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett
... know. He wants to be told without asking—told, I mean, that each of the stories, those that have come to him, is a fraud and a libel. Qui s'excuse s'accuse, don't they say?—so that do you see me breaking out to him, unprovoked, with four or five what-do-you-call-'ems, the things mother used to have to prove in court, a set of neat little 'alibis' in a row? How can ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... what you call a (it is astonishing that in this country there should be such a wish for taking away people's characters, which, for my part, I don't see is a bit more entertaining than what you are always doing,—playing with those stupid birds) libel!" ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... we would the gum from our eyes; but if that be impossible, we must not root out and extinguish with it the belief which the most have of the gods; nor is that a dismaying and sour one either, as these gentlemen feign, while they libel and abuse the blessed Providence, representing her as a witch or as some fell and tragic fury. Yea, I must tell you, there are some in the world that fear God in an excess, for whom yet it would not be better not so to fear him. For, while they dread him as a governor that ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... years of age. Of his personal appearance at this time we have no description. The portrait of him prefixed to the original edition of his works belongs to a much later moment. Whether or not the bovine features in Marshall's engraving are a libel on the poet, it is to be regretted that oblivion has not laid its erasing finger on that singularly unpleasant counterfeit presentment. It is interesting to note that this same Marshall engraved the head of Milton for the first ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... that's a libel, surely," said Celia. "No; I think you are right. But how foolish of us, ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... but his age was recorded against him in the Year-Books of his craft. And he couldn't lie about his heart, he didn't know it had a valve that leaked. He didn't believe it. He had given the man who examined it the lie; and he had gone to a heart-specialist to get the report (which he regarded as a libel) contradicted, and the heart-specialist had confirmed it, and told him he wasn't the first man who had come to him to get an opinion overruled. He said he was to keep quiet and avoid excitement. He mustn't ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... arsenicum. The reference in inventories, enrolments, and wills, to spoons of these materials are so frequent, so ever-present, as to make citation superfluous. An evil reputation of poisonous unhealthfulness hung around the vari-spelled alchymy (perhaps it is only a gross libel of succeeding generations); but, harmful or harmless, alchymy, no matter how spelt, disappears from use before Revolutionary times. Wooden spoons also are named. Silver spoons were not very plentiful. John Oxenbridge ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... publicly. The law recognizes this principle. In our own time, men have been imprisoned and fined for saying true things of a bad king. The maxim has been held, that, "The greater the truth, the greater is the libel." And so as to the judgment of society, a just indignation would be felt against a writer who brought forward wantonly the weaknesses of a great man, though the whole world knew that they existed. No one is at liberty to speak ill of another without a justifiable reason, ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... desperado, whose face and mind are a libel upon human nature, has had the insolence to speak to his master's niece as one whom he was at liberty to admire; and when I turned on him with the anger and contempt he merited, the wretch grumbled out something, as if he held the destiny ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... cannot stand agitation. Whoever espouses the cause of error must evade facts, falsify figures, libel logic, tangle his tongue or pen with contradictions and ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... requires some explanation. Mr. Radley, the assistant house-master at Bramhall House, was a hard master, who would have been hated for his insufferable conceptions of discipline, had he not been the finest bat in the Middlesex team. Just about this time there was a libel current that he made a favourite of Edgar Doe because he was pretty. "Doe," I had once said, "Radley's rather keen on you, isn't he?" And Doe had turned red and scoffed: "How absolutely silly—but, I say, do you really think so?" ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... brutality and were not envenomed by the gospel of hate. Out of the dark depths of their experience they looked up to the light, and had visions of some better law of life than that which led to the world-tragedy. It would be a foul libel on many of them to besmirch their honor by a general accusation of lowered morality and brutal tendencies. Something in the spirit of our race and in the quality of our home life kept great numbers of them sound, chivalrous, generous-hearted, in spite of the frightful influences of ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... and interviewed the editor, a mild and apologetic little man, who assured me that the despatch was printed exactly as it had been received, as though that bettered the case. After this I commenced an action for libel, but as I was absent through circumstances over which I had no control when it came on for trial, the case was dismissed. I suppose the truth was that they mixed me up with a certain well-known white man in Zululand, who had a large "domestic establishment," but however ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... Orleans, Mr. Garrison faithfully denounced in unmeasured terms his fellow-townsman, and asserted the equal wickedness of the domestic slave trade with that of the foreign traffic, which, at that time, was in the law considered piracy. Arrested, tried, and convicted of libel, although the facts were proven, Garrison was incarcerated in the Baltimore jail, April 17, 1830, in default of a fine of $50 with $50 costs. Undaunted in his captivity, he continued to write his protest against slavery and to record in verse his feelings. His famous ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... decidedly small, and yet in private life they were doubtless honourable men. It's a good deal like a political campaign in the United States, where men who are usually honest will lie about the other side, without any twinges of conscience—there's even a loop-hole in the libel law for them to crawl through, made, it would seem, especially for their benefit. So, I think, we may pass up ...
— Affairs of State • Burton E. Stevenson
... wherever they had been born; but to collect a series of such atrocities, to string them together into a story, and to hold them up, as Mrs. Beecher Stowe has, as a picture of slave life in the Southern States, is as gross a libel as if anyone were to make a collection of all the wife-beatings and assaults of drunken English ruffians, and to publish them as a picture of the ...
— With Lee in Virginia - A Story of the American Civil War • G. A. Henty
... it himself, and is therefore affected by the satire exactly as any one of us would be if we were accused of being black or of keeping a shop for the receiving of stolen goods. We might be angry at the libel, but not at the satire: for a man is angry at a libel because it is false, but at a satire because ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... damage to another obliged the wrongdoer to make reparation, and this responsibility extended to damages arising not only from positive acts, but from negligence or imprudence. In an action of libel or slander, the truth of the allegation might be pleaded in justification. [Footnote: D. 47, 10, 18.] In all cases it was necessary to show that an injury had been committed maliciously. But if damage arose in the exercise of a right, as killing a slave ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... forget to think? At your age, Sir, home, fortune, friends, A dear girl's love,—but I took to drink;— The same old story; you know how it ends. If you could have seen these classic features,— You needn't laugh, Sir; I was not then Such a burning libel on God's creatures; I was one of your ...
— Poems Teachers Ask For, Book Two • Various
... word remains. Might it not be very dangerous to send this letter? Suppose Beryl did show it to that man who called himself Nicolas Arabian? He might—it was improbable, but he might—bring an action for libel against the writer. Lady Sellingworth sickened as she thought of that, and rapidly she imagined a hideous scandal, all London talking of her, the Law Courts, herself in the witness-box, cross-examination. What evidence could she give ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... that Galileo had thus cast ridicule upon his friend and patron is no doubt a gratuitous and insulting libel: there is no telling whether or not Urban believed it, but certainly his countenance changed to Galileo henceforward, and whether overruled by his Cardinals, or actuated by some other motive, his ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... Dimension Commensurate Preclude Cloister Turnpike Travesty Atone Incarnate Charnal Etiquette Rejuvenate Eradicate Quiet Requiem Acquiesce Ambidextrous Inoculate Divulge Proper Appropriate Omnivorous Voracious Devour Escritoire Mordant Remorse Miser Hilarious Exhilarate Rudiment Erudite Mark Marquis Libel Libretto Vague Vagabond Extravagant ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... hollow and slippery pathways of artificial life—of that unfeeling, unholy and loathsome selfishness of heart, and soul, and countenance, which marks as with a brand of infamy, the fictions of fashionable and metropolitan society, where every person and profession you meet, is a lie or a libel to be guarded against. Yes, it is pleasant to us to leave all this, and to go back in imagination to a fair day in the town of Balaghmore. Like an annual festival, it stole upon us with many yearning ...
— Lha Dhu; Or, The Dark Day - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... small-minded a people as to be jealous of the success of others. It is the other way about: we are the most extraordinarily ambitious, and the success of one man in any walk of life spurs the others on. It does not sour them, and it is a libel even to suggest so ...
— Random Reminiscences of Men and Events • John D. Rockefeller
... underlines the malicious content of this polemical pamphlet, a pungent libel on Swift's character that includes cutting observations on Swift's chief fiction as well. Obviously, the author's intent is to vilify Swift in retaliation for attacks on the writer's friends. Inspired by the publication of the Travels, ...
— A Letter From a Clergyman to his Friend, - with an Account of the Travels of Captain Lemuel Gulliver • Anonymous
... I explained to him, with the intention of going straight to my solicitors and instituting proceedings against him for talking like a fool; and he put on his hat and went across to his solicitors to commence proceedings against me for libel. ...
— They and I • Jerome K. Jerome
... will be instructed" were of notable service in helping him to form a decision, for he had a certain dislike of other solicitors, and an intimate knowledge of the law of libel and slander; if by any remote chance there should be a slip between the cup and the lip, Charles Ventnor might be in the soup—a position which he deprecated both by nature and profession. High thinking, therefore, decided him at ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... thought again of anything but Truth and the Church, and the enemies of Truth and the Church: the Manichees, the Arians, the Pelagians—the Donatists, above all. He lets no error go by without refuting it, no libel without an answer. He is always on the breach. He might well be compared, in much of his writings, to one of our fighting journalists. He put into this generally thankless business a wonderful vigour and dialectical subtlety. Always and everywhere he ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand
... was found in the river near my house. Now, I want to tell you that I am not only an innocent but a much-maligned man. The law of the land will establish both facts in due season. But I want to warn some of you, too, I shall not trouble to issue writs for libel. If any blackguard among you dares to insult me openly, ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy
... Mary this restriction was removed. Henceforth men were free not only to think, but to print and circulate their thought (subject, of course, to the law of libel and sedition). They could thus bring the government more directly before that bar of public opinion which judges ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... dock, did ye—ran into Her Majesty's dock, and ye had room enough to turn a fleet in! Do you think we paint these docks for the fun of havin' you lubbers scrape it off? You'll pay for paintin' it over, sir—that's what you'll do, or I'll libel your boat, and send a file of marines down and tie her up,' and away he went up the ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... part of itself, but anyone who ventured to deny that it was doing so. We were ruled, as it were, by a Wonderland king and queen, who cut off our heads, not for saying they quarrelled but for saying they didn't. The libel law was now used, not to crush lies about private life, but to crush truths about public life. Representation had become mere misrepresentation; a maze of loopholes. This was mainly due to the monstrous presence of certain secret ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton
... 'Robinson Crusoe' there, and many of his best political pamphlets. There also he wrote his 'Hymn to the Pillory,' and corrected for the press a collection of his voluminous writings. [219] Smollett wrote his 'Sir Lancelot Greaves' in prison, while undergoing confinement for libel. Of recent prison-writers in England, the best known are James Montgomery, who wrote his first volume of poems while a prisoner in York Castle; and Thomas Cooper, the Chartist, who wrote his 'Purgatory ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... springing out of his chair with fury, "leave this room instantly; and you, Herr Patke, if you wish to bring an action for libel against the gentleman you may call ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... The libel he was about to utter on his distinguished colleague was suddenly cut short by a knock at the door; and, in answer to his summons, the butler-looking person entered and announced that Sir George Frinton and Mr. Casement were ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... demarcation which can only be transgressed by the most popular of rulers under very exceptional circumstances. Seven bishops refused to comply with the Royal Command. They were accused of "seditious libel." They were brought before a court. The jury which pronounced the verdict of "not guilty" reaped a rich ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... Gibbon, compelled to flight; Charles Churchill, Hume, and Priestley, persecuted; John Wilkes sent to the Tower. The task would be a long one, were we to count over the victims of the statute against seditious libel. The Inquisition had, to some extent, spread its arrangements throughout Europe, and its police practice was taken as a guide. A monstrous attempt against all rights was possible in England. We have only to recall the Gazetier Cuirasse. ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... Was Miss Slammer to libel them and then send down an impostor to make fun of them? Her impressionable mind was as subject to as many changes as an April day and her recent pleasure in Mr. Lufton's society changed to displeasure as the ...
— Molly Brown's Senior Days • Nell Speed
... latter end of Queen Elizabeth's reign. In its first state wretched must have been its appearance, since the great linguist John Minshew, in his 'Guide into Tongues,' printed in 1617, gives it the most miserable character of which any libel can be capable. Mr. Minshew says (and his words were quoted by Lord Chief Justice Holt), 'A PAMPHLET, that is Opusculum Stolidorum, the diminutive performance of fools; from [Greek: pan], all, and [Greek: pletho], I fill, to wit, all places. According to the vulgar saying, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... he stacked up more libel suits than a newspaper of limited capital with a staff of local attorneys could handle before he moved to Louisville, where, for three years, he was staff correspondent of The Evening Post. It was here that Cobb discovered how far a humorist could go without being invited to step ...
— When Winter Comes to Main Street • Grant Martin Overton
... fondness, not altogether free from affectation, for dainty phrases; and a feminine love of little niceties in dress, tapestry, needlework, and furnishings. The poem was written mostly in prison where its author spent two years for a libel on the Prince Regent. Byron used to visit him there and bring him books bearing on Francesca's history. Hunt brought into the piece romantic stuff from various sources, including a summary of the book which betrayed the lovers to their fatal passion, ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... mind to seize his animal round the throat with both hands immediately and drag him away; his teeth were so firmly set in the handkerchief that that came too. No one is a hero at all hours, and Wobbler came as near being frightened as a soldier or a pugilist can be supposed, without libel, to do. This made him angry, and he used language towards the dog and his anatomy, and his own anatomy, which is not customary in polite society. Stubbs carried the offender down to his kennel and chained him up, and on his ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... Sir George was dead and buried by the Grits; once over the Union Trust land investigation; again in a libel suit which he lost to the Globe when Rowell was against him. None of these things defeated the able author of Resurgam! who was made Minister of Trade, went for a six-months' journey in the Orient trying to convert ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... specimen has an air of dignity compared with the grosser exploits of the hired eavesdropper. Not long since there appeared in a Sunday paper a full list, with portraits and biographies, of all the ladies in New York who are habitual drunkards. From which it is clear that the law of libel has sunk into oblivion, and that the cowhide is no longer ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... the enterprise, and after an evening's ramble in the Park, during which the terms and the principles of the paper and the spirit in which it should be conducted were canvassed, the publication of the Nation was determined on. Mr. Duffy was convicted for having written a libel in the Vindicator, and his friends earnestly advised him to compromise the matter with a view of bringing more powerful energies to the same task ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... measure of defense. Bayard adroitly proposed as an amendment that "the offenses therein specified shall remain punishable as at common law, provided that upon any prosecution it shall be lawful for the defendant to give as his defense the truth of the matter charged as a libel." Gallatin called upon the chair to declare the amendment out of order, as intended to destroy the resolution, but the speaker declined, and the amendment was carried by a vote of 51 to 47. The resolution ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... idea of how to get money under false pretences was to make some over-rich old maid believe that he loved her for herself alone and in his heart scorned her wealth. Even he profited by this, since he later sued the editor who printed his picture with the label "A Social Highwayman" for libel, claiming damages of $50,000, and then settled the case out of court for $15,000, spot cash. The letter was found on the floor of the box where Nervy Jim had dropped it; Holmes and his plain-clothes men paid an early ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs |
