For the defendants Mr. Dodd said that the owners of the newspaper which
he represented were as anxious as anybody could be that reasonable
justice should be done. Of course, Berry did not suggest that there was
any actual money out-of-pocket loss. Then another feature of such a
case was the question of whether the paper was one of that class which
feeds on personal attacks. He submitted that the general character of
the paper, a point to which juries were apt to pay some attention, was
good. The articles in question were copied from an American paper,
and the proprietors of "Answers" were in the position of having been
misled, just as the proprietors of the _New York Sun_ had been misled
by the large imagination of Mr. White. Berry seemed to be very quick
in his methods, for his writ was served within a very few days of the
appearance of the article, and without any opportunity being given
to his clients to try and make some kind of apology to suit him. His
clients had endeavoured to meet the case in a perfectly reasonable way.
They did not for a moment express any doubt that they were dealing with
an honest, a decent, and an experienced man, they withdrew all supposed
imputations, and had had no intention of making any; and he contended
that the highest testimonial possible was one from a person who had
said something derogatory to him. Berry had suffered no monetary
damage whatever beyond the actual costs of the action. He suggested,
therefore, that the jury should give such a verdict as would show that
the plaintiff was quite right in bringing the matter into court, but
that they were of opinion that the defendants had done everything that
they could to mitigate the mischief and annoyance occasioned by the
publication of the libel.
His Lordship then summed up, and the jury found for the plaintiff, with
£100 damages.
FINIS.
FOOTNOTES:
[A] This chapter is taken verbatim from Mr. Berry's note-book. Elisions
are marked....--ED.
[B] The length of drop you, yourself, thought sufficient, as I read in
the _Standard_.
Transcriber's Note:
Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as
possible including some inconsistent hyphenation. Some minor
corrections of spelling and punctuation have been made.
Italic text has been marked with _underscores_.
End of Project Gutenberg's My Experiences as an Executioner, by James Berry
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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