THE RIGHT TO PRIVACY. 215 properly prefer to keep private, made public against their will. It is the unwarranted invasion of individual privacy which is reprehended, and to be, so far as possible, prevented. The dis- tinction, however, noted in the above statement is obvious and fundamental. There are persons who may reasonably claim as a right, protection from the notoriety entailed by being made the victims of journalistic enterprise. There are others who, in vary- ing degrees, have renounced the right to live their lives screened from public observation. Matters which men of the first class may justly contend, concern themselves alone, may in those of the second be the subject of legitimate interest to their fellow-citizens. Peculiarities of manner and person, which in the ordinary indi- vidual should be free from comment, may acquire a public importance, if found in a candidate for political office. Some further discrimination is necessary, therefore, than to class facts or deeds as public or private according to a standard to be applied to the fact or deed per se. To publish of a modest and retiring individual that he suffers from an impediment in his speech or that he cannot spell correctly, is an unwarranted, if not an unexampled, infringement of his rights, while to state and comment on the same characteristics found in a would-be con- gressman could not be regarded as beyond the pale of propriety. The general object in view is to protect the privacy of private life, and to whatever degree and in whatever connection a man's life has ceased to be private, before the publication under con- sideration has been made, to that extent the protection is to be withdrawn. 1 Since, then, the propriety of publishing the very same facts may depend wholly upon the person concerning whom they are published, no fixed formula can be used to prohibit obnoxious publications. Any rule of liability adopted must have in it an elasticity which shall take account of the varying circum- stances of each case, — a necessity which unfortunately renders such a doctrine not only more difficult of application, but also to
- " Nos moeurs n'admettent pas la pretention d'enlever aux investigations de la pub-
licil^ les actes qui reinvent de la vie publique, et ce dernier mot ne doit pas ^tre restreint k la vie officielle ou k celle du fonctionnaire. Tout homme qui appelle sur lui I'atten- tion ou les regards du publique, soit par une mission qu'il a rcQue ou qu'il se donne, soit par le r61e qu'il s'attribue dans I'industrie, les arts, le theatre, etc., ne pent plus invoquer centre la critiq^ie ou l'expos6 de sa conduite d'autre protection que leslois qui repriment la diffamation et I'injure. " Circ. Mins. Just., 4 Juin, i868. Rivifere Codes Fran<jais et Lois Usuelles, App. Code Pen. 20 n (b ).
