Odger's English Common Law

CRIMINAL LIBEL. 175
bitter end. He is not bound to take criminal proceedings ; if he is con-
tent to sue for damages, no one will blame bim. But it is necessary for the
repression of libels that there should be a criminal remedy as well.
Libellers are often penniless, and a civil action therefore has no terrors for
them. The plaintiff will never get his damages. Hence the civil remedy
is not by itself a sufficient protection for the public.
The same words if merely spoken would be no ground for any criminal
proceedings, though they may give the person slandered a good cause of
action. Yet a slander clearly may tend to produce a breach of the peace.
The mischief done by libels, however, iB so extensive, and the bad example
they set is so pernicious, that it is right that they should be repressed for
the public good. Slanders do less mischief. They are probably uttered in
a moment of anger and haste ; they are less permanent and more easily
forgotten, and their evil effects are not so widely diffused as a libel pub-
lished in a newspaper. One never knows into whose hands written or
printed matter may come. Hence it is the law of England that a slander
on a private individual is,a tort and not a crime, while a libel on a private
individual is both a tort and a crime, if it tends to provoke a breach of the
peace.
Not every libel is a crime, but only those which the State
has an interest in repressing. In other words, not every
publication which would be held a libel in a civil case can
be made the foundation of criminal proceedings. " A criminal
prosecution ought not to be instituted unless the offence be
such as can be reasonably construed as calculated to disturb
the peace of the community. In such a case the public
prosecutor has to protect the community in the person of an
individual. But private character should be vindicated in an
action for libel, and an indictment for libel is only justified
when it affects the public, as an attempt to disturb the public
peace." *
While therefore criminal proceedings for libel will not lie
in every case in which a civil action can be brought, so on
the other hand the criminal remedy is in some cases more
•extensive than the civil. There may be many libels, the
•circulation of which would be a danger to the public peace
and tranquillity, and which yet might afford no ground for
an action for damages. Thus, it is a misdemeanour to libel
any sect, company or class of men, though no particular
i Per Lord Coleridge, L. C. J., in Wood v. Cox (1888), 4 Times L. E. at
-p. 664, referring to hie own judgment in B. v. Labouchere (1884), 12 Q. B. D. 320 ;
see especially pp. 322, 323.