fraud may be covered with a show of virtue, while malignity, envy, and unscrupulousness, as often as a wholesome zeal for honesty, may seek to tear off the mask and denounce the pretender. It is honourable to enjoy and defend reputation, as it is also honourable and pleasant to denounce hypocrisy and imposture. Both are honourable, but when they cannot both be had at one and the same moment, on one and the same subject matter, the law is bound to make a choice, and it naturally prefers him who defends his possession of reputation against him who at most is only indulging his freedom of speech about somebody else. The one right lies closer to one's thoughts and has more of the positive; the other is mostly only a negative deprivation. Hence, whenever reputation is attacked, the law sides with its possessor against the mere exercise of free speech. But when it can be shown that he who exercised this free speech was in reality in the pursuit of his own immediate business and interest, which to him was all in all, and as valuable as any other person's reputation, then the law again changes sides, and holds that he, who is lawfully pursuing his own immediate interests, and to whom freedom of speech is essential to enable those interests to be maintained and advanced, shall be protected in that freedom of speech, whatever be the consequence. Such are the views on which the law acts sometimes on one side and sometimes on the other. Those occasions on which the law protects freedom of speech are often called privileged occasions, and the kind of lawful business so protected is that of exchanging confidential views about one's private business and friends, and about the nation's business, which is every man's private business within certain limits.

When protection of character is preferred to free speech. As a general rule, therefore, the protection of one's character and reputation comes home to each more closely than any exercise of the right of censure, denunciation, and criticism of third parties; and hence free speech, if nothing more is involved, must give way to the desire of maintaining reputation. It is in every way more salutary, that he whose character is libelled should be protected, than that he who libels should be able to speak his mind freely. Both are good; but if they clash and

become incompatible, the better must be preferred. And hence arise all the rules and qualifications of the law of libel, which is nothing else than a summary of those instances in which the law prefers one's reputation to another's free speech, and in which the prosecution of one's personal interests, and of the public interest as part of that personal interest, will be protected in the exercise of free speech, in preference to the reputation of a third person. The details of all these distinctions, which are at first somewhat bewildering, will be shown in a later page in their natural order and mutual relations.

Chief medium of thought is speech and writing.And further, before the law can properly deal with those who attack the reputation of others, some notice must be taken of the medium through which this is done. The two leading vehicles of thought are, first and above all others, the faculty of writing or speech; and secondly, printing; but there are other less important means of the same general character, namely, painting or drawing, and any signs and symbols of thought; and even gestures may be employed with like effects. Speech is transitory, and operates only within the range of a limited audience, and perishes with the memory of those who listened.

Writing, as a vehicle of thought, is more durable in its effects, and may circulate beyond the range of the speaker and the hearers; and its influence may be communicated over a wider area. It exists in a stereotyped form, and may be referred to and comprehended by an indefinite number of individuals. Again, printing is only a higher degree of the same mode of publicity, and in its nature, owing to the perfection the art has attained, and the extension of education, tends to circulate over a still wider area-an area which can only be limited by the living generations of man, and not even by these. Painting or drawing in some respects resembles the vehicle of writing and printing, and it may be incorporated in both, or may be circulated by itself in an independent shape, and even a gesture or an attitude may in certain circumstances be as expressive as any speech. As a general rule, the wider the imputation spreads, the greater is the damage and injury to the character assailed.

All these vehicles of thought and expression, therefore,

differ from each other chiefly in degree, according as they are calculated to reach a greater or less number of individuals, and as a general rule, the greater the number of people to whom a false or unlawful accusation is communicated, the greater is the blow to one's character and reputation, and therefore the greater the punishment needed to correct it.

Double aspect of the exercise of free speech. - From all that has preceded it will be seen, how necessary it is, especially in an age when civilisation has restored to the utmost the natural freedom of thought and speech, and at the same time has carried to so high a pitch the arts of printing and publishing, that there should be some check put upon envious, passionate, or malicious representations which create a false impression of a neighbour's character, and thereby weaken its natural influence over others. Constituted as human nature is, and with tendencies of good and evil, consideration must be given to the mischief that may be done by marring the advancement of virtue and intellect, which are the dominant forces governing reasonable men, and on whose free development the happiness of the world mainly depends. To think and speak as every man inclines is indeed one of the primary tendencies which the law encourages, simply because it is natural and irrepressible. But as our conscience informs us that while there are those who seek to think and speak well, there are others who from base motives or blind passion seek for unworthy ends to thwart the legitimate influence of another's character, the latter must be restrained and punished, in order that that other might be let alone, and in order that high character may work out its own reward. The law takes for granted, that the universal conscience of mankind recognises the one course as good and the other course as evil, and that all that is necessary is merely to restrain so much of the evil as unduly checks the progress and development of the good. It is the object of the law to methodise and define the clear practical rules by which the perversion of speech or writing may be punished. Except in so far as the law, whether common law or statute law, has put some restraint, thought and speech are free, whether in public assemblies or private conversations.

The highest faculties of man, and those by which everything good is promoted in the world, and by which society is elevated in its tone, mainly depend on speech and writing. It is therefore of the last importance in all wellregulated communities that as few restrictions as possible should be put by the law on the free play of thought— that the satirist, the preacher, the patriot, the moralist, or the politician should be allowed to circulate his thoughts to the full extent, for it is by free discussion that public opinion is educated, and the public good promoted, by which bad laws are altered, and pain and suffering diminished among mankind; and as this can usually be done without misrepresenting or libelling individuals and unduly crippling their influence, the restraints of the law are framed only to check abuses of this primary freedom of thought and speech.

Freedom of thought as developed in public meetings. The most prominent of all the manifestations of freedom is that of public meeting. By this is meant not the liberty of corporations to meet in large numbers, or the liberty of mayors, lords lieutenant of counties, or sheriffs or justices of the peace in their official capacity to invite together as many of the public as choose to attend and hear a discussion of any grievance or matter of interest, which the official head thinks reasonable and proper to discuss. But a public meeting is an assemblage of large numbers called together by any member of the public as a volunteer, whenever he thinks that his neighbours will be sufficiently interested to join with him in discussing some topic of the hour, and who does so without any licence of any official-without notice to any official-and without any official whatever being present, or having any participation in or power over the proceeding. So long as such public meeting can be held at the call of any voice from the crowd, and the people can meet in any numbers without let or hindrance and discuss and exchange their

1 Besides the right which nature has given to every man to his property, his freedom, and his life, she has also conferred on him a fourth right, that of defending the former three; and government is nothing more than a systematic mode of carrying this fourth right into convenient and complete effect.-Beaufoy, M.P. 28 Parl. II. 420.

sentiments on anything and everything that concerns them -that touches their interests or their feelings-this is as near the enjoyment of perfect liberty as is attainable. No limit can be assigned to the variety of the subject matter which may thus call the public together. The only restrictions possible are those which arise out of the danger of saying something blasphemous or grossly immoral or seditious, something amounting to a contempt of Parliament or of a court of justice, or defamatory of some individual, as to each of which excesses the speaker may afterwards be called to an account. The liberty of expressing to large meetings without let or hindrance every thought as it occurs, whether wise or unwise, so long as the limits here indicated are not reached, is the characteristic of a public meeting; and the holding of public meetings is one of the most important exercises of free speech known to mankind.

Freedom of thought in lecturing or addressing audiences. It is only another form of the liberty of public meeting, when any person takes upon himself after previous notice or otherwise to deliver a lecture to many persons or make a speech or address to them on any subject to which they will consent to listen. If no previous permission or consent of any official is required, and the only limits to be observed by the lecturer or orator are those already set forth in reference to public meetings, this also is an element of public freedom which comes home to every citizen.

Freedom of petitioning the Crown and Parliament. -Akin to the right of public meeting and the right of lecturing, though not necessarily involving the formality of any large meeting of persons, is the right of petitioning the Crown or Parliament on any matter which is deemed to affect the interests of large numbers. It will be seen that this is an important mode of exercising freedom of speech and highly prized, inasmuch as it often influences the course of action of those who are in positions of the highest authority. It is to some small extent a participation in the very government of the country, for to use argument with, or even to obtain an audience of those who have in hand important issues affecting the public business, and to be able to make representations which