Odger's English Common Law

176 ACTS CALCULATED TO PROVOKE A BREACH OF THE PEACE-
person is indicated,— provided it be alleged and proved,
that such a libel tends to excite hatred against all belong-
ing to such sect or class, and conduces to a breach of the-
peace.
Thus in an old case 1 the defendant published a sensational account of a
cruel murder said to have been committed by certain Jews lately arrived
from Portugal and then living near Broad Street. They were said to have
burnt a woman and a new-born baby alive because its father was a
Christian. Certain Jews who had recently arrived from Portugal, and who
then lived in Broad Street, were in consequence attacked by the mob,,
barbarously handled, and their lives endangered. Criminal proceedings-
were at once commenced against the defendant. The objection was raised
that it did not appear precisely who were the persons accused of the murder,
and that no civil action for damages could therefore have been brought for
want of a proper plaintiff. But the Court held that it was wholly
immaterial whether a civil action would lie or not, and granted a criminal
information ; for obviously there would soon have been a riot, if not a
massacre, in Broad Street, if such libels had not been promptly suppressed.
So in a recent case an indictment charging a person with encouraging
persons unknown to murder the sovereigns and rulers of Europe was held
good, as a sufficiently well-defined class was referred to by the words-
" sovereigns of Europe." 2
Again, criminal proceedings may be taken if the defendant
has published defamatory words about a man who is dead,
provided the obvious tendency of such words is to provoke
his family to a breach of the peace. Such a libel, from the
point of view of the State, is just as pernicious as a libel on
a living man, who might take the law into his own hands and
chastise the offender himself. No civil action can be brought
for a libel on a dead man. 3
But an indictment will lie for
such words whenever they clearly tend to provoke a breach
of the peace. It is not necessary to prove that a breach of
the peace was actually committed ; still less that the libeller
intended or desired that an assault should ensue. It is enough
if the natural effect of the words is to dishonour the memory
of the deceased and to outrage his posterity to such an extent
as to render abreaeh of the peace imminent or probable. 4
1 R. t. Osborn (1732), 2 Barnard. 138, 166. And see R. v. Gathercole (1838),
2 Lewin, 0. C. 237 ; R. v. Russell and another (1905), 93 L. T. 407.
2 R. v. AntoneUi (1906), 70 J. P. 4.
3 I/uchumsey Rowji v. Hurbun Nursey and others (1881), I. L. R. 5 Bombay,
580 ; Broom, v. Ritchie (1905), 6 F. 942, Ct. of Sess.
* R. v. Topham (1791), 4 T. R. 126 ; R. v. Walter (1799), 3 Esp. 21 ; but see
R. v. Ensor (1887), 3 Times L. R. 366. As to threatening to libel a dead man in order
to blackmail his children, seepost, pp. 181— 183.