LIAS

lias, in geology, the lowermost group of jurassic strata. originally the name seems to have been written "lyas"; it is most probably a provincial form of "layers," strata, employed by quarrymen in the west of england; it has been suggested, however, that the fr. _liais_, breton _leach_ = a stone, gaelic _leac_ = flat stone, may have given rise to the english "lias." liassic strata occupy an important position in england, where they crop out at lyme regis on the dorsetshire coast and extend thence by bath, along the western flank of the cotswold hills, forming edge hill and appearing at banbury, rugby, melton, grantham, lincoln, to redcar on the coast of yorkshire. they occur also in glamorganshire, shropshire, near carlisle, in skye, raasay (pabba, scalpa and broadfoot beds), and elsewhere in the north of scotland, and in the north-east of ireland. east of the belt of outcrop indicated, the lias is known to occur beneath the younger rocks for some distance farther east, but it is absent from beneath london, reading, ware, harwich, dover, and in the southern portion of the area in which these towns lie; the liassic rocks are probably thinned out against a concealed ridge of more ancient rocks. the table on following page will serve to illustrate the general characters of the english lias and the subdivisions adopted by the geological survey. by the side are shown the principal zonal ammonites, and, for comparison, the subdivisions preferred by messrs tate and blake and by a. de lapparent. the important fact is clearly demonstrated in the table, that where the lias is seen in contact with the trias below or the inferior oolite above, there is, as a rule, a gradual passage from the liassic formation, both downwards and upwards; hence professor de lapparent includes in his _liassique system_ the zone of _ammonites opalinus_ at the top, and the rhaetic beds at the bottom (see oolite; rhaetic). owing to the transgression of the liassic sea the strata rest in places upon older palaeozoic rocks. the thickness of the lias varies considerably; in dorsetshire it is 900 ft., near bath it has thinned to 280 ft., and beneath oxford it is further reduced. in north gloucestershire it is 1360 ft., northampton 760 ft., rutland 800 ft., lincolnshire 950 ft., and in yorkshire about 500 ft. the lias of england was laid down in conditions very similar to those which obtained at the same time in north france and north germany, that is to say, on the floor of a shallow sea; but in the alpine region limestones are developed upon a much greater scale. many of the limestones are red and crystalline marbles such as the "ammonitico-rosso-inferiore" of the apennines; a grey, laminated limestone is known as the "fleckenmergel." the whitish "hierlatzkalke," the adnet beds and the "grestener beds" in the eastern alps and balkan mountains are important phases of alpine lias. the grestener beds contain a considerable amount of coal. the lias of spain and the pyrenees contains much dolomitic limestone. this formation is widely spread in western europe; besides the localities already cited it occurs in swabia, the rhenish provinces, alsace-lorraine, luxemburg, ardennes, normandy, austria-hungary, the balkan states, greece and scania. it has not been found north of kharkov in russia, but it is present in the south and in the caucasus, in anatolia, persia and the himalayas. it appears on the eastern side of japan, in borneo, timor, new caledonia and new zealand (bastion beds); in algeria, tunisia and elsewhere in north africa, and on the west coast of madagascar. in south america it is found in the bolivian andes, in chile and argentina; it appears also on the pacific coast of north america. +-----+------------------------------+-------------------+--------------------------+-------------------------------+ | | s. w. england and midlands. | yorkshire. | ammonite zones.* | divisions according to | | | | | | a. de lapparent.** | +-----+------------------------------+-------------------+--------------------------+-------------------------------+ | u l | midford sands (passage beds) | alum shale |_am. jurensis_ \ | (including the _opalinus_ zone| | p i | | | | | of the inferior oolite.) | | p a | clays with cement-stones | jet rock | " _communis_ > u. | toarcien. | | e s | limestones and clays | grey shale | " _serpentinus_ / | | | r . | | | " _annulatus_ \ | | +-----+------------------------------+-------------------+------------------- | ---+-------------------------------+ | m | | | | | | | i l | marlstone and sands | ironstone series |_am. spinatus_ | | | | d i | (rock bed and ironstones) | | | | | | d a | micaceous clays and sands | sandy series | " _margaritatus_ | | | | l s | | | | | | | e . | | | > m. | | +-----+------------------------------+------------------ +------------------- | | charmouthien. | and | | clays with occasional bands | upper series with |_am. capricornus_ | | | | | of limestone | ironstone nodules| " _jamesoni_ | | | | l l | | | and | | | | o i | | | " _armatus_ / | | | w a | | | +-------------------------------+ | e s | limestones and clays | lower series with | " _oxynotus_ \ | | | r . | | sandy and marly | " _bucklandi_ > l. | sinemourien. | | | | beds | " _angulatus_ | | hettangien including "white | | | | | " _planorbis_ / | lias." | +-----+------------------------------+-------------------+--------------------------+-------------------------------+ | | | | | rhetien. | +-----+------------------------------+-------------------+--------------------------+-------------------------------+ * the brackets indicate the divisions made by r. tate and j. f. blake. ** _traite de geologie_ (5th ed., paris, 1906). the economic products of the lias are of considerable importance. in the lower lias of lincolnshire and the middle lias of oxfordshire, northamptonshire, lincolnshire, leicestershire and yorkshire the beds of ironstone are of great value. most of these ores are limestones that have been converted into iron carbonate with some admixture of silicates; they weather near the surface into hydrated peroxide. at frodingham in lincolnshire the oolitic iron ore reaches 30 ft. in thickness, of which 12 ft. are workable. in gloucestershire the top beds of the lower lias and lower beds of the middle division are the most ferruginous; the best ores near woodstock and banbury and between market harborough and leicester are at the summit of the middle lias in the marlstone or rock bed. the ironstone of fawler is sometimes known as blenheim ore. the ores of the cleveland district in yorkshire have a great reputation; the main seam is 11 ft. thick at eston, where it rests directly upon the pecten seam, the two together aggregating 15 ft. 6 in. similar iron ores of this age are worked at meurthe-et-moselle, villerupt, marbache, longuy, champagneulles, &c. some of the liassic limestones are used as building stones, the more important ones being the lower lias sutton stone of glamorganshire and middle lias hornton stone, the best of the lias building stones, from edge hill. the limestones are often used for paving. the limestones of the lower lias are much used for the production of hydraulic cement and "blue lias" lime at rugby, barrow-on-soar, barnstone, lyme regis, abertham and many other places. roman cement has been made from the nodules in the upper lias of yorkshire; alum is obtained from the same horizon. a considerable trade was formerly done in jet, the best quality being obtained from the "serpentinus" beds, but "bastard" or soft jet is found in many of the other strata in the yorkshire lias. both lower and upper lias clays have been used in making bricks and tiles. fossils are abundant in the lias; lyme regis, shepton mallet, rugby, robin hood's bay, ilminster, whitby and golden cap near charmouth are well-known localities. the saurian reptiles, _ichthyosaurus_ and _plesiosaurus_, are found in excellent preservation along with the pterodactyl. among the fishes are _hybodus_, _dapedius_, _pholidophorus_, _acrodus_. the crinoids, _pentacrinus_ and _extracrinus_ are locally abundant. insect remains are very abundant in certain beds. many ammonites occur in this formation in addition to the forms used as zonal indexes mentioned in the table. _lima gigantea_, _posidonomya bronni_, _inoceramus dubius_, _gryphaea cymbium_ and _g. arcuata_ are common pelecypods. _amberleya capitanea_, _pleurotomaria anglica_ are lias gasteropods. _leptaena_, _spiriferina_, _terebratella_ and _rhynchonella tetrahedra_ and _r. variabilis_ are among the brachiopods. certain dark limestones with regular bedding which occur in the carboniferous system are sometimes called "black lias" by quarrymen. see "the lias of england and wales" (yorkshire excepted), by h. b. woodward, _geol. survey memoir_ (london, 1893); and, for yorkshire, "the jurassic rocks of britain," vol. i., "yorkshire," by c. fox-strangways, _geol. survey memoir_. see also jurassic. (j. a. h.) libanius (a.d. 314-393), greek sophist and rhetorician, was born at antioch, the capital of syria. he studied at athens, and spent most of his earlier manhood in constantinople and nicomedia. his private classes at constantinople were much more popular than those of the public professors, who had him expelled in 346 (or earlier) on the charge of studying magic. he removed his school to nicomedia, where he remained five years. after another attempt to settle in constantinople, he finally retired to antioch (354). though a pagan, he enjoyed the favour of the christian emperors. when julian, his special patron, restored paganism as the state religion, libanius showed no intolerance. among his pupils he numbered john chrysostom, basil (bishop of caesarea) and ammianus marcellinus. his works, consisting chiefly of orations (including his autobiography), declamations on set topics, letters, life of demosthenes, and arguments to all his orations are voluminous. he devoted much time to the classical greek writers, and had a thorough contempt for rome and all things roman. his speeches and letters throw considerable light on the political and literary history of the age. the letters number 1607 in the greek original; with these were formerly included some 400 in latin, purporting to be a translation, but now proved to be a forgery by the italian humanist f. zambeccari (15th century). editions: orations and declamations, j. j. reiske (1791-1797); letters, j. c. wolf (1738); two additional declamations, r. forster (_hermes_, ix. 22, xii. 217), who in 1903 began the publication of a complete edition; _apologia socratis_, y. h. rogge (1891). see also e. monnier, _histoire de libanius_ (1866); l. petit, _essai sur la vie et la correspondance du sophiste libanius_ (1866); g. r. sievers, _das leben des libanius_ (1868); r. forster, _f. zambeccari und die briefe des libanius_ (1878). some letters from the emperor julian to libanius will be found in r. hercher, _epistolographi graeci_ (1873). sixteen letters to julian have been translated by j. duncombe (_the works of the emperor julian_, i. 303-332, 3rd ed., london, 1798). the oration on the emperor julian is translated by c. w. king (in bohn's "classical library," london, 1888), and that in defence of the temples of the heathen by dr lardner (in a volume of translations by thomas taylor, from celsus and others, 1830). see further j. e. sandys, _hist. of classical scholarship_, i. (1906), and a. harrent, _les ecoles d'antioche_ (1898). libation (lat. _libatio_, from _libare_, to take a portion of something, to taste, hence to pour out as an offering to a deity, &c.; cf. gr. [greek: leibein]), a drink offering, the pouring out of a small quantity of wine, milk or other liquid as a ceremonial act. such an act was performed in honour of the dead (gr. [greek: choai], lat. _profusiones_), in making of treaties (gr. [greek: sponde, spendein] = _libare_, whence [greek: spondai], treaty), and particularly in honour of the gods (gr. [greek: loibe], lat. _libatio_, _libamentum_, _libamen_). such libations to the gods were made as part of the daily ritual of domestic worship, or at banquets or feasts to the lares, or to special deities, as by the greeks to hermes, the god of sleep, when going to rest. libau (lettish, _leepaya_), a seaport of russia, in the government of courland, 145 m. by rail s.w. of riga, at the northern extremity of a narrow sandy peninsula which separates lake libau (12 m. long and 2 m. wide) from the baltic sea. its population has more than doubled since 1881 (30,000), being 64,505 in 1897. the town is well built of stone, with good gardens, and has a naval cathedral (1903). the harbour was 2 m. s. of the town until a canal was dug through the peninsula in 1697; it is now deepened to 23 ft., and is mostly free from ice throughout the year. since being brought, in 1872, into railway connexion with moscow, orel and kharkov, libau has become an important port. new libau possesses large factories for colours, explosives, machinery belts, sails and ropes, tobacco, furniture, matches, as well as iron works, agricultural machinery works, tin-plate works, soap works, saw-mills, breweries, oil-mills, cork and linoleum factories and flour-mills. the exports reach the annual value of £3,250,000 to £5,500,000, oats being the chief export, with flour, wheat, rye, butter, eggs, spirits, flax, linseed, oilcake, pork, timber, horses and petroleum. the imports average £1,500,000 to £2,000,000 annually. shipbuilding, including steamers for open-sea navigation, is on the increase. north of the commercial harbour and enclosing it the russian government made (1893-1906) a very extensive fortified naval port, protected by moles and breakwaters. libau is visited for sea-bathing in summer. the port of libau, _lyra portus_, is mentioned as early as 1263; it then belonged to the livonian order or brothers of the sword. in 1418 it was burnt by the lithuanians, and in 1560 it was mortgaged by the grandmaster of the teutonic order, to which it had passed, to the prussian duke albert. in 1701 it was captured by charles xii. of sweden, and was annexed to russia in 1795. see wegner, _geschichte der stadt libau_ (libau, 1898). libel and slander, the terms employed in english law to denote injurious attacks upon a man's reputation or character by words written or spoken, or by equivalent signs. in most early systems of law verbal injuries are treated as a criminal or quasi-criminal offence, the essence of the injury lying not in pecuniary loss, which may be compensated by damages, but in the personal insult which must be atoned for--a vindictive penalty coming in the place of personal revenge. by the law of the xii. tables, the composition of scurrilous songs and gross noisy public affronts were punished by death. minor offences of the same class seem to have found their place under the general conception of _injuria_, which included ultimately every form of direct personal aggression which involved contumely or insult. in the later roman jurisprudence, which has, on this point, exercised considerable influence over modern systems of law, verbal injuries are dealt with in the edict under two heads. the first comprehended defamatory and injurious statements made in a public manner (_convicium contra bonos mores_). in this case the essence of the offence lay in the unwarrantable public proclamation. in such a case the truth of the statements was no justification for the unnecessarily public and insulting manner in which they had been made. the second head included defamatory statements made in private, and in this case the offence lay in the imputation itself, not in the manner of its publication. the truth was therefore a sufficient defence, for no man had a right to demand legal protection for a false reputation. even belief in the truth was enough, because it took away the intention which was essential to the notion of _injuria_. the law thus aimed at giving sufficient scope for the discussion of a man's character, while it protected him from needless insult and pain. the remedy for verbal injuries was long confined to a civil action for a money penalty, which was estimated according to the gravity of the case, and which, although vindictive in its character, doubtless included practically the element of compensation. but a new remedy was introduced with the extension of the criminal law, under which many kinds of defamation were punished with great severity. at the same time increased importance attached to the publication of defamatory books and writings, the _libri_ or _libelli famosi_, from which we derive our modern use of the word libel; and under the later emperors the latter term came to be specially applied to anonymous accusations or pasquils, the dissemination of which was regarded as peculiarly dangerous, and visited with very severe punishment, whether the matter contained in them were true or false. the earlier history of the english law of defamation is somewhat obscure. civil actions for damages seem to have been tolerably frequent so far back as the reign of edward i. there was no distinction drawn between words written and spoken. when no pecuniary penalty was involved such cases fell within the old jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical courts, which was only finally abolished in the 19th century. it seems, to say the least, uncertain whether any generally applicable criminal process was in use. the crime of _scandalum magnatum_, spreading false reports about the magnates of the realm, was established by statutes, but the first fully reported case in which libel is affirmed generally to be punishable at common law is one tried in the star chamber in the reign of james i. in that case no english authorities are cited except a previous case of the same nature before the same tribunal; the law and terminology appear to be taken directly from roman sources, with the insertion that libels tended to a breach of the peace; and it seems probable that that not very scrupulous tribunal had simply found it convenient to adopt the very stringent roman provisions regarding the _libelli famosi_ without paying any regard to the roman limitations. from that time we find both the criminal and civil remedies in full operation, and the law with regard to each at the present time may now be considered. _civil law._--the first important distinction encountered is that between slander and libel, between the oral and written promulgation of defamatory statements. in the former case the remedy is limited. the law will not take notice of every kind of abusive or defamatory language. it must be shown either that the plaintiff has suffered actual damage as a direct consequence of the slander, or that the imputation is of such a nature that we are entitled to infer damage as a necessary consequence. the special damage on which an action is founded for slanderous words must be of the nature of pecuniary loss. loss of reputation or of position in society, or even illness, however clearly it may be traced to the slander, is insufficient. when we cannot prove special damage, the action for slander is only allowed upon certain strictly defined grounds. these are the imputation of a crime or misdemeanour which is punishable corporeally, e.g. by imprisonment; the imputation of a contagious or infectious disease; statements which tend to the disherison of an apparent heir (other cases of slander of title when the party is in possession requiring the allegation of special damage); the accusing a woman of unchastity (slander of women act 1891); and, lastly, slanders directed against a man's professional or business character, which tend directly to prejudice him in his trade, profession, or means of livelihood. in the latter case the words must either be directly aimed at a man in his business or official character, or they must be such as necessarily to imply unfitness for his particular office or occupation. thus words which merely reflect generally upon the moral character of a tradesman or professional man are not actionable, but they are actionable if directed against his dealings in the course of his trade or profession. but, in the case of a merchant or trader, an allegation which affects his credit generally is enough, and it has been held that statements are actionable which affect the ability or moral characters of persons who hold offices, or exercise occupation which require a high degree of ability, or infer peculiar confidence. in every case the plaintiff must have been at the time of the slander in the actual exercise of the occupation or enjoyment of the office with reference to which the slander is supposed to have affected him. the action for libel is not restricted in the same way as that for slander. originally there appears to have been no essential distinction between them, but the establishment of libel as a criminal offence had probably considerable influence, and it soon became settled that written defamatory statements, or pictures and other signs which bore a defamatory meaning, implied greater malice and deliberation, and were generally fraught with greater injury than those made by word of mouth. the result has been that the action for libel is not limited to special grounds, or by the necessity of proving special damage. it may be founded on any statement which disparages a man's private or professional character, or which tends to hold him up to hatred, contempt or ridicule. in one of the leading cases, for example, the plaintiff obtained damages because it was said of him that he was a hypocrite, and had used the cloak of religion for unworthy purposes. in another case a charge of ingratitude was held sufficient. in civil cases the libel must be published by being brought by the defendant under the notice of a third party; it has been held that it is sufficient if this has been done by gross carelessness, without deliberate intention to publish. every person is liable to an action who is concerned in the publication of a libel, whether he be the author, printer or publisher; and the extent and manner of the publication, although not affecting the ground of the action, is a material element in estimating the damages. it is not necessary that the defamatory character of the words or writing complained of should be apparent on their face. they may be couched in the form of an insinuation, or may derive their sting from a reference to circumstances understood by the persons to whom they are addressed. in such a case the plaintiff must make the injurious sense clear by an averment called an innuendo, and it is for the jury to say whether the words bore the meaning thus ascribed to them. in all civil actions for slander and libel the falsity of the injurious statements is an essential element, so that the defendant is always entitled to justify his statements by their truth; but when the statements are in themselves defamatory, their falsity is presumed, and the burden of proving their truth is laid upon the defendant. there are however a large class of false defamatory statements, commonly called privileged, which are not actionable on account of the particular circumstances in which they are made. the general theory of law with regard to these cases is this. it is assumed that in every case of defamation intention is a necessary element; but in the ordinary case, when a statement is false and defamatory, the law presumes that it has been made or published with an evil intent, and will not allow this presumption to be rebutted by evidence or submitted as matter of fact to a jury. but there are certain circumstances in which the natural presumption is quite the other way. there are certain natural and proper occasions on which statements may be made which are in themselves defamatory, and which may be false, but which naturally suggest that the statements may have been made from a perfectly proper motive and with entire belief in their truth. in the cases of this kind which are recognized by law, the presumption is reversed. it lies with the plaintiff to show that the defendant was actuated by what is called _express malice_, by an intention to do harm, and in this case the question is not one of legal inference for the court, but a matter of fact to be decided by the jury. although, however, the theory of the law seems to rest entirely upon natural presumption of intention, it is pretty clear that in determining the limits of privilege the courts have been almost wholly guided by considerations of public or general expediency. in some cases the privilege is absolute, so that we cannot have an action for defamation even although we prove express malice. thus no action of this kind can be maintained for statements made in judicial proceedings if they are in any sense relevant to the matter in hand. in the same way no statements or publications are actionable which are made in the ordinary course of parliamentary proceedings. papers published under the authority of parliament are protected by a special act, 3 & 4 vict. c. 9, 1840, which was passed after a decree of the law courts adverse to the privilege claimed. the reports of judicial and parliamentary proceedings stand in a somewhat different position, which has only been attained after a long and interesting conflict. the general rule now is that all reports of parliamentary or judicial proceedings are privileged in so far as they are honest and impartial. even _ex parte_ proceedings, in so far as they take place in public, now fall within the same rule. but if the report is garbled, or if part of it only is published, the party who is injured in consequence is entitled to maintain an action, and to have the question of malice submitted to a jury. both absolute and qualified privilege are given to newspaper reports under certain conditions by the law of libel amendment act 1888. the reports must, however, be published in a newspaper as defined in the newspaper libel and registration act 1881. under this act a newspaper must be published "at intervals not exceeding twenty-six days." by s. 3 of the act of 1888 fair and accurate reports of judicial proceedings are absolutely privileged provided that the report is published contemporaneously with the proceedings and no blasphemous or indecent matter is contained therein. by s. 4 a limited privilege is given to fair and accurate reports (1) of the proceedings of a _bona fide_ public meeting lawfully held for a lawful purpose and for the furtherance and discussion of any matter of public concern, even when the admission thereto is restricted; (2) of any meeting, open either to the public or to a reporter, of a vestry, town council, school board, board of guardians, board of local authority, formed or constituted under the provisions of any act of parliament, or of any committee appointed by any of these bodies; or of any meeting of any commissioners authorized to act by letters patent, act of parliament, warrant under royal sign manual, or other lawful warrant or authority, select committees of either house of parliament, justices of the peace in quarter sessions assembled for administrative or deliberative purposes; (3) of the publication of any notice or report issued for the information of the public by any government office or department, officer of state, commissioner of police or chief constable, and published at their request. but the privilege given in s. 4 does not authorize the publication of any blasphemous or indecent matter; nor is the protection available as a defence if it be proved that the reports or notices were published maliciously, in the legal sense of the word, or the defendant has been requested to insert in the newspaper in which the report was issued a reasonable letter or statement by way of contradiction or explanation, and has refused or neglected to do so. moreover, nothing in s. 4 is to interfere with any privilege then existing, or to protect the publication of any matter not of public concern, or in cases where publication is not for the public benefit. consequently no criminal prosecution should be commenced where the interests of the public are not affected. by the law of libel amendment act 1888, s. 8, no criminal prosecution for libel is to be commenced against any newspaper proprietor, publisher or editor unless the order of a judge at chambers has been first obtained. this protection does not cover the actual writer of the alleged libel. in private life a large number of statements are privileged so long as they remain matters of strictly private communication. it is difficult to define the limits of private privilege without extensive reference to concrete cases; but generally it may be said that it includes all communications made in performance of a duty not merely legal but moral or social, answers to _bona fide_ inquiries, communications made by persons in confidential relations regarding matters in which one or both are interested, and even statements made within proper limits by persons in the _bona fide_ prosecution of their own interest. common examples of this kind of privilege are to be found in answer to inquiries as to the character of servants or the solvency of a trader, warnings to a friend, communications between persons who are jointly interested in some matters of business. but in every case care must be taken not to exceed the limits of publication required by the occasion, or otherwise the privilege is lost. thus defamatory statements may be privileged when made to a meeting of shareholders, but not when published to others who have no immediate concern in the business. in a few instances in which an action cannot be maintained even by the averment of malice, the plaintiff may maintain an action by averring not only malice but also want of reasonable and probable cause. the most common instances of this kind are malicious charges made in the ordinary course of justice and malicious prosecutions. in such cases it would be contrary to public policy to punish or prevent every charge which was made from a purely malicious motive, but there is no reason for protecting accusations which are not only malicious, but destitute of all reasonable probability. _criminal law._--publications which are blasphemous, immoral or seditious are frequently termed libels, and are punishable both at common law and by various statutes. the matter, however, which constitutes the offence in these publications lies beyond our present scope. libels upon individuals may be prosecuted by criminal information or indictment, but there can be no criminal prosecution for slander. so far as concerns the definition of libel, and its limitation by the necessity of proving in certain cases express malice, there is no substantial difference between the rules which apply to criminal prosecutions and to civil actions, with the one important exception (now considerably modified) that the falsity of a libel is not in criminal law an essential element of the offence. if the matter alleged were in itself defamatory, the court would not permit inquiry into its truth. the sweeping application of this rule seems chiefly due to the indiscriminate use, in earlier cases, of a rule in roman law which was only applicable to certain modes of publication, but has been supported by various reasons of general policy, and especially by the view that one main reason for punishing a libel was its tendency to provoke a breach of the peace. an important dispute about the powers of the jury in cases of libel arose during the 19th century in connexion with some well-known trials for seditious libels. the point is familiar to readers of macaulay in connexion with the trial of the seven bishops, but the cases in which it was brought most prominently forward, and which led to its final settlement, were those against woodfall (the printer of _junius_), wilkes and others, and especially the case against shipley, the dean of st asaph (21 st. tr. 925), in which the question was fought by lord erskine with extraordinary energy and ability. the controversy turned upon the question whether the jury were to be strictly confined to matters of fact which required to be proved by evidence, or whether in every case they were entitled to form their own opinion upon the libellous character of the publication and the intention of the author. the jury, if they pleased, had it in their power to return a general verdict of guilty or not guilty, but both in theory and practice they were subject in law to the directions of the court, and had to be informed by it as to what they were to take into consideration in determining upon their verdict. there is no difficulty about the general application of this principle in criminal trials. if the crime is one which is inferred by law from certain facts, the jury are only concerned with these facts, and must accept the construction put upon them by law. applying these principles to the case of libel, juries were directed that it was for the court to determine whether the publication fell within the definition of libel, and whether the case was one in which malice was to be inferred by construction of law. if the case were one in which malice was inferred by law, the only facts left to the jury were the fact of publication and the meaning averred by innuendoes; they could not go into the question of intention, unless the case were one of privilege, in which express malice had to be proved. in general principle, therefore, the decisions of the court were in accordance with the ordinary principles of criminal law. but there were undoubtedly some peculiarities in the case of libel. the sense of words, the inferences to be drawn from them, and the effect which they produce are not so easily defined as gross matters of fact. they seem to belong to those cases in which the impression made upon a jury is more to be trusted than the decision of a judge. further, owing to the mode of procedure, the defendant was often punished before the question of law was determined. but, nevertheless, the question would scarcely have been raised had the libels related merely to private matters. the real ground of dispute was the liberty to be accorded to political discussion. had the judges taken as wide a view of privilege in discussing matters of public interest as they do now, the question could scarcely have arisen; for erskine's whole contention really amounted to this, that the jury were entitled to take into consideration the good or bad intent of the authors, which is precisely the question which would now be put before them in any matter which concerned the public. but at that time the notion of a special privilege attaching to political discussion had scarcely arisen, or was confined within very narrow limits, and the cause of free political discussion seemed to be more safely entrusted to juries than to courts. the question was finally settled by the libel act 1792, by which the jury were entitled to give a general verdict on the whole matter put in issue. _scots law._--in scots law there were originally three remedies for defamation. it might be prosecuted by or with the concurrence of the lord advocate before the court of justiciary; or, secondly, a criminal remedy might be obtained in the commissary (ecclesiastical) courts, which originally dealt with the defender by public retractation or penance, but subsequently made use of fines payable to their own procurator or to the party injured, these latter being regarded as solatium to his feelings; or, lastly, an action of damages was competent before the court of session, which was strictly civil in its character and aimed at the reparation of patrimonial loss. the first remedy has fallen into disuse; the second and third (the commissary courts being now abolished) are represented by the present action for damages or solatium. originally the action before the court of session was strictly for damages--founded, not upon the _animus injuriandi_, but upon culpa, and could be defended by proving the truth of the statements. but in time the court of session began to assume the original jurisdiction of the commissary courts, and entertained actions for solatium in which the _animus injuriandi_ was a necessary element, and to which, as in roman law, the truth was not necessarily a defence. ultimately the two actions got very much confused. we find continual disputes as to the necessity for the _animus injuriandi_ and the applicability of the plea of _veritas convicii_, which arose from the fact that the courts were not always conscious that they were dealing with two actions, to one of which these notions were applicable, and to the other not. on the introduction of the jury court, presided over by an english lawyer, it was quite natural that he, finding no very clear distinction maintained between damage and solatium, applied the english plea of truth as a justification to every case, and retained the _animus injuriandi_ both in ordinary cases and cases of privilege in the same shape as the english conception of malice. the leading and almost only differences between the english and scots law now are that the latter makes no essential distinction between oral and written defamation, that it practically gives an action for every case of defamation, oral or written, upon which in england a civil action might be maintained for libel, and that it possesses no criminal remedy. in consequence of the latter defect and the indiscriminate application of the plea of veritas to every case both of damages and solatium, there appears to be no remedy in scotland even for the widest and most needless publication of offensive statements if only they are true. _american law._--american law scarcely if at all differs from that of england. in so far indeed as the common law is concerned, they may be said to be substantially identical. the principal statutes which have altered the english criminal law are represented by equivalent legislation in most american states. see generally w. b. odgers, _libel and slander_; fraser, _law of libel and slander_.