Litchfield enquirer., 1872-07-04
LIB FL.


 "In every action for an alleged libel, the defendant may give proof of intention; and unless the plaintiff shall prove malice in fact, he shall recover nothing but the actual damage which he has specially al- legged in his declaration and has proved.
 This statute was passed to protect editors against suits forpublishingnews that they supposed true but which afterwards turn ed out to be false to the injury of some ones reputation TnAsuch case, under the old law, 'tmaice'' was always a necessary 1 inference from the want of truth in the statement published, no matter how inno- cent the intention of the editors publish ing may have been-though he may have corrected the mis-statement as soon as it's falsity, had come to it's knowledge, and though he was merely copying from other journals the current news of the day. This statute came before the Supreme Court in 1858 in the case of Moore vs. Ste1ohenson. This court regretted the passage of such a law and very much restricted its application, restoring in fact the old law of inferential malice in case the person publishing falsehood knew it to be false, or made the publication with out authority ef without Such authority as would be regarded as entitled to ere dence among upright and careful men, 3 or recklessly without appearing to care whether it was true or false or whether any one was injured by it or not, or neg lected ''to repair the injury by contra dieting the publication when it is discov- cred to be false, and especially. after & request to do it. ''We may demand from an editor" further say the court whether he be himself the author or only opens his columns to others, that he exercise the care and vigilance of pru- dent and conscientious man welding the power of the public press" I5.
 As restricted by this decision we can see little danger to the public in the Connec- ticut law of libel. The papers of this state are certainly no more given to ibels than those of other states where the com mon law still remains unchanged. Last week this question came before our legis- lature on bill introduced by MT. Waller, of New London, making the refusal to re- tract a mis-statement evidence of malice. What other provisions MT. Walters bill contains the brief newspaper notices do not indicate, but in view of the extracts above quoted from the Supreme Court de- cision we cannot see the necessity of fur thel1egislation. The refusal to retract a libel is now, if we understand that decis- ion, evidence of malice on the part of the person so refusing, and we cannot see what good the passage of MT. Walters bill would effect.
 By curious coincidence MT. Waller only few days since found it necessary to write letter to the Hartford Post ask ing it's retraction of some statement that had been made in that paper relative to his Capitol lobbying All the retraction he got was another article aggravating the original charge, and calling attention to the fact that the eccentric statesman from New London spells 'tinnuendo" with one %. Thereupon MT. Waller introduces his libel bill and makes speech in which he maintains that, ..,..s .
 s'The newspapers of this State to-day exercise license beyond endurance. Not the Hartford Post only, but other papers elsewhere. Only the other day, two Sem ators of this Legislature were attacked in an outrageous way, and the cases are many. In fact, any man who comes to this Legislature now runs serious risk from this source. ...s a. .-.t
 We imagine that the Connecticut legis- lature will hardly make the blunder of passing special laws to give it's members special advantages in any quarrels they may have with the press.
 HISTORY OF ANCIENT WooDBURY, by Will
 liam Cothren, Vol III.
 i The first volume of MT. Cothren's His tory, published about twenty years since, is one of the most complete local histories we have ever seen Nevertheless during the interval that has followed, covering as it does the whole of the great civil war, the Town and First Church bi,centennia] and the Masonic and Episcopal centennial celebrations, much has happened worthy of record. Moreover additional matte, :. relative to the early history of the town had also come to the knowledge of its his. torian, so that supplemental volume has been deemed necessary. After some de. lays in publication this volume has been issued and is now before us.
 We have not had time for thorough examination of Mir. Cothren's second vol. ume and can only speak from a nasty look at it's contents That it is we'll written those who are familiar with the writer's literary talent wiA not be surprised te find. To most readers, too, we imagine that it will be of greater interest than the former volume. Its illustrations are pro. fuse, but not, we regret to say, good. The portrait of the author at the beginning ii an excellent one, presenting the well knowr face, more benignant by twenty years of { WSA Spout AAo SAan sHo1 "AAcA AluSGEasos the former volume. The cuts that follow are some of them good, some illustrate their subjects well, and some are very bad The author certainly takes his full chance with the rest for such unfortunate i'm mortality as his engrayer can confer, SC that we do not feel like finding too mucl fault but the illustrations, as whole are much below the execution of the worl in other respects.
 It is hardly fair, perhaps, to criticis' the writer of g local record for trespassine somewhat on the more interesting field O general history. The teinptation to en 'liven the petty details of the one with th' grand facts of the other is peculiarly grea