Kidd V. Royal Agricultural Society of England. 667 
by will not correct mo when I say that when those upon whom the law puts 
the mms of supporting their plea of justification fail, when the two bodies of 
testimony are laid before a jury, in makino; out the plea, the Plaintiff is 
' entitled to the verdict. I trast and I hope it will not be the mere solution 
of a doubt that will give me that verdict, but that your verdict will be 
cheerfully given when you recall all the facts and suggestions which have 
been laid before you in this case in favour of my client. 
Looking to that event. Gentlemen, there remains a matter upun which it 
would be out of place almost for me to address you ; because, when it cumcs 
( to be a question of damages, a jury can best know how to approximate a just 
I solution. We have proved beyond all doubt, you know, that my client has 
I sufl'ered in his trade. This was an article of commerce which brought him in 
I a profit of 5s. per ton ; he was doing a very large trade, and that has been 
I prejudiced and diminished, as Mr. Kidd told you, I think by about 1700 tons 
aheady in the past year, and no doubt the wide circulation of these Eeports 
; must have tended to cany on that mischievous tendency. His profit of 5s. 
per ton upon that can be very easily calculated by you. You have therefore 
something to guide you in estimating the damages. If this had been a case 
of personal mahce and sjjite you would do it by a very different measure, but 
I it is not tliat. I never charged that, or asked for sympathy upon that ground, 
i I only characterize it as the result of a hasty conclusion arrived at by those 
[ interested on the part of the Defendants. 
Gentlemen, in conclusion, I do venture to trust and believe that truth and 
justice will vindicate my client's case at your hands, and that you will agree 
with me that my observations are entitled to the weight which I have 
ventured to ask you to attach to them. If you come to the conclusion that 
I they are, you will give my client such damages as will set his character right, 
and vindicate him from such imputations as a charge of this kind, if un- 
answered, must inevitably cast upon him. 
Summing-up. 
Me. Justice Blackburn : In this case the action is brought 
for a libel, and two pleas are pleaded, one of Not Guilty, as to 
which it is now admitted that the libel was published by the 
Defendants, although they deny that there is a libel to 
the extent that is alleged. Under the plea of Not Guilty they 
would be entitled to deny the libel altogether ; but it is not 
disputed now. But what they deny is, that it is a libel to the 
extent which the other side allege, and they have also pleaded 
that it is true in substance and effect. 
Now, you know a libel has been defined (and I know no 
better definition of it) to be a publishing of something injurious 
to another without lawful excuse or justification ; and the Royul 
Agricultural Society in the present case, though the very ()i)jc'Ct 
!of these Reports is, on their part, to warn the farmers against 
trading with people when they think they are not trading pro- 
perly,— although that may be a very proper thing, and there is no 
malignity or immorality on their part, yet that would not he a 
