still more? Jadunáthji Maháráj, should you wish to propagate or to spread abroad religion, then do you personally adopt a virtuous course of conduct and admonish your other Mahárájás. As long as the preceptors of religion shall themselves appear to be immersed in the sea of licentiousness, for so long they shall not be competent to convey religious exhortation. Gokulnathji having composed the commentary abovementioned, has attached to your Vaishnava persuasion a great blot of ink. Let that be first removed. Scorn the writer of the commentary. [Oh, you] Mahárájás, acting up to that commentary, defile the wives and daughters of your devotees. Desist from that and destroy at once immorality such as that of the company at Ras festival. As long as you shall not do so, for so long you cannot give religious admonition, and propagate your own religious faith; do you be pleased to be assured of that."

This publication may be divided under four heads:

1stly. So far as it characterizes the sect of Vallabháchárya, as heretical in respect of the ancient Hindu religion.

2ndly. As it attributes to the Mahárájás as the spiritual heads of the sect, the inculcation of heretical and immoral doctrines.

3rdly. As it charges the Mahárájás as a body with immoral practices under the pretence of religion.

4thly. So far as it charges the plaintiff individually with the practice of immorality with the females of his sect.

The plaintiff complains that these several charges are false and malicious, and that they have been published of, and injuriously affect, him,-in his individual character as a member of society at large, in his religious character and conduct as a Brahmin, as a Maháráj, as a Hindu high priest and as a member of the sect of Vallabháchárya.

He claims damages for the injury done to him in these several characters which he claims to fill.

The defendants have pleaded several pleas.

Firstly. Not guilty.

Secondly. That the Mahárájás are not preceptors of the Hindu religion.

Thirdly. That they are not the heads or chiefs of the Brahmins. Fourthly. That the plaintiff was not a Hindu priest of high caste or a preceptor of the Hindu religion.

Fifthly. That the sect of Vallabháchárya is not an ancient sect, and that it holds doctrines repugnant to the doctrines of the ancient Hindu religion.

Sixthly. That the translation of the latter portion of the libel as rendered in the plaint, was not correct.

Seventhly. That the charges made by the defendants in the publication were all true.

Eighthly. The same plea in a general form.

The plaintiff joined issue on the first six pleas, and replied "De injuria," to the seventh and eighth.

The seventh plea was of very great length; it set out various points of doctrine, from books alleged to be of religious authority in the sect of Vallabháchárya and relied upon those passages as justify-. ing the publication in charging heresy and immorality of doctrine against the Mahárájás and the sect. It also put in issue various facts and circumstances as proof of the evil reputation of the Mahárájás as a body for immorality, and it finally charged specific acts of personal immorality to have been committed by the plaintiff.

The Court have been thus compelled to receive evidence at great length upon controverted points of doctrine amongst the members of that sect, and to receive it in great part through the unsatisfactory medium of translations of isolated passages from works in Sanskrit or Brij-Bháshá, which are practically dead languages and not provided for in the translators' department.

For the plaintiff there were examined thirty-one witnesses and for the defendants thirty-one. The case was contested with all the obstinacy and acrimony which generally characterize caste and religious disputes, when they unfortunately force themselves into a court of law. The trial was thus prolonged to a most unusual length.

Publication by the defendants has been admitted. Upon the evidence, I entertain no doubt that the alleged libel has been correctly translated into English as it appears upon the plaint and think as so translated that the latter portion contains matter highly defamatory of the plaintiff. It substantially singles him out by name and thus directly charges him with leading a licentious and immoral life, and with defiling the wives and daughters of his devotees. It then calls upon the plaintiff to desist from those practices and ends by assuring him that unless he does so, he cannot give religious admonition or propagate his own religion. The applicability of that portion of the publication to the plaintiff has been controverted to some extent.

A very intelligent witness, Dr. Bháu Dáji, stated after some consideration that he understood the latter part as a "general expostu lation" with the Mahárájás as a class and "that any intelligent reader would so understand it," and afterwards that "he did not think it alluded to the plaintiff." However he qualified that evidence in the end by stating to the Court" that he could not say that the plaintiff was excluded," that with his knowledge of the plaintiff's antecedents "he did include him amongst those who were charged with defiling the wives and daughters of his devotees," and his last answer was "that as a reader not knowing the plaintiff's antecedents he would consider it doubtful whether he was included or not." Now, if a writer expresses himself either through design or negligence in such a manner as to render it doubtful in the minds of one class of readers whether the defamatory matter applies to a person named; but leave no doubt whatever on the minds of others, that it does so apply, the writer must abide by the consequences, and if otherwise liable he must answer in damages for the injury he has done to the person so defamed. Libels are to be construed according to the plain and ordinary sense of the language in which they are written, and the suggestion of a possible construction by which the party complaining might not be included is not to relieve the libeller from responsibility.

The defence made at the bar, that the libellous matter was not intended to apply to the plaintiff individually is scarcely consistent with the reply which the defendants made to the complaint by the plaintiff in April, 1861: when the latter called for a contradiction of and apology for the statements" so far as they relate to the alleged improper conduct ascribed to himself," the reply of the defendants was through the columns of their newspaper that they saw nothing to require "explanation, alteration, or apology."

Then holding the publication to be libellous and consequently malicious, I have next to consider the defence relied upon under the plea of not guilty, viz., That the defamatory matter was published under circumstances which formed a justifying occasion.

A "justifying occasion" has been defined in very clear terms by Baron Parke in Toogood v. Spyring, 1 Compton, Meeson, and Roscoe. He states it to be "the publication of defamatory matter, honestly

made by a person in the discharge of some public or private duty, whether legal or moral, or in the conduct of his own affairs in matters where his interest is concerned." In such cases the occasion prevents the inference of "malice" and he goes on to say "that if fairly warranted by any reasonable occasion, or exigency, and honestly made, such communications are protected for common convenience and welfare of society, and the law has not restricted the right to make them within any narrow limits."

The effect of the existence of a "justifying occasion" is to negative malice both in fact as well as in law, either of which is necessary to maintain an action of libel. The difference between malice in fact and malice in law is laid down in Bromage v. Prosser, where the former is defined to be "ill will against a person," and malice in law "a wrongful act done, intentionally, without legal justification or excuse." And in Duncan v. Thwaites, 3 Barnwell and Cresswell, Chief Justice Abbot further defines the meaning of the word "malice," when he says the use of the word "malicious" in declaration of libel is "rather to exclude a supposition that the publication had been made in some innocent occasion, than for any other purpose."

In cases of this kind, when tried before a jury, it is their province to find whether the communication was made bond fide or not, and if in the affirmative, it becomes the duty of the judge, as a matter of law, to decide whether the occasion of the publication was such as to rebut the inference of malice, or, in accordance with the definition in Bromage v. Prosser, whether there was any "legal justification or excuse" for the "wrongful act."

I have thus to investigate and decide, first, whether the publication was made bond fide by the defendants, and next, if it were, whether then a legal justification or excuse is to be found in the surrounding circumstances proved in this case for the libel upon private character which the publication contains. In the present case I see no reason to doubt that the defendant entered into this controversy with the honest purpose of exposing to public reprobation doctrines which he conscientiously believed to be subversive of social morality, and so far as he has commented on these doctrines, I see no ground for complaint. I consider his strictures not to have in any degree

excceded the "licentious comment," as it has been termed, which is allowable upon matters more immediately affecting public interests, and I have no doubt that matters affecting the morality of a considerable portion of the public are undoubtedly matters of that description. But the question remains, whether under all the circumstances the defendants were justified in leaving the region of commentary altogether, and in making a direct charge upon the plaintiff's private character, by accusing him of having been engaged in the practice of defiling the wives and daughters of his devotees under the pretence of religion. I thought the law on this subject was very clear, but in deference to some difficulty which my brother Arnould feels, I shall examine it at greater length than I would otherwise have considered necessary.

Now, 'so far as the plaintiff is concerned, the case stands thus: The plaintiff was practically a stranger to Bombay prior to July, 1860, when he arrived. At first he united in some reformatory views of the defendants and others with reference to female education and re-marriage of widows, but was supposed to have in part seceded from them after. He set on foot a pamphlet or periodical called "The Propagator of our own Religion," and invited extraneous or it may be hostile criticism and discussion upon the views it placed before the public. On the 21st October, 1860, the libel appears, and the plaintiff is charged in it with conduct which, if true, ought to deprive him of the respect of, and indeed communion with, the members of any civilized community.

The defendant, Karsandás Mulji, was not personally acquainted with the plaintiff, nor was he, according to his own admission, personally acquainted with any act of immorality committed by the plaintiff or any other Maháráj, but prior to the libel, one Lálshankar, an intimate friend of his, volunteered the information that the plaintiff bore a bad character for morality in Bombay, in Surat, and in other places in the Mofussil, where Lálshankar had been. Lálshankar was a native of, and an annual visitor to, Surat, where the plaintiff had a temple. So far as the plaintiff was individually concerned, that was all the information respecting his alleged immoral practices that the defendants possessed at the time of the libel. It does not appear that the defendants took any pains to