668 Kidd V. Royal Agricultural Society of England. 
lawful excuse ; and it is obvious that the more respectable the 
Society, the more likely would anything they published be to 
produce the evil effect on the person whom they denounced — 
depending upon the extent to which it goes. Consequently, 
there seems to be no doubt at all that what the Defendants have 
published would be a libel as far as it would be injurious to the 
Plaintiff, and the Plaintiff's manufacture of the oil-cake in 
respect of which he brings this action. Then the law stands 
also thus : that where a thing is true, though it still would 
remain a libel, a man can recover no damages for what is true ; 
and therefore it may very well be that when there is a libel in 
which a man imputes, we will say, A, B, and C, the De- 
fendant may be able to prove A and B to be true, but not C. 
In that case there would be a verdict for the Plaintiff, because 
the Defendant had not proved the whole of the libel to be true; 
but the damages which would be given would be only for that 
part that he does not prove to be true : and consequently there 
will be two things you will have to look at. The first is, to 
consider the libel, to see what are the imputations that are con- 
veyed in what is in the ' Mark Lane Express,' published by the 
Defendants — how far do they go, what do they amount to, and 
what is the extent of the libel : this will be a question for you, 
and I will call your attention to it presently ; then, secondly, 
when you come to consider the evidence which we have heard, 
what you think is the result of the proof as regards that? You 
see, it may be the Defendants have succeeded in proving all the 
allegations which are contained in the libel. If they have done 
that, if they have proved in substance everything that they have 
really stated, then the Defendants would have the verdict 
altogether ; if they have proved only a portion of what they have 
stated, then they, leaving a portion of the libel unjustified and 
unexcused by not proving all the truth of it, the Plaintiff would 
be entitled to his verdict. But the amount of damages would 
depend entirely upon what you thought was the amount left un- 
justified and unexcused by not proving the truth of it, and the 
degree to which you think the Plaintiff would be entitled to 
damages for the injury done to him in respect of that. Now 
that 1 need not point out to you is a thing which varies ex- 
cessively, according to the nature of the imputation. 
Having first of all pointed that out to you, we will see what 
are the imputations contained in this libel — how far does it go? 
That is a question for you, and not for me ; and when you have 
settled that question, namely, what is the extent to which this 
goes, we shall then be in a position to see whether the De- 
fendant has succeeded in proving it all. Now, it begins in this 
way — " As usual at this season, cases of so-called poisoning from 
