2 1 6 HAR VARD LAW RE VIE W. a certain extent uncertain in its operation and easily rendered abortive. Besides, it is only the more flagrant breaches of decency and propriety that could in practice be reached, and it is not per- haps desirable even to attempt to repress everything which the nicest taste and keenest sense of the respect due to private life would condemn. In general, then, the matters of which the pubHcation should be repressed may be described as those which concern the pri- vate life, habits, acts, and relations of an individual, and have no legitimate connection with his fitness for a public office which he seeks or for which he is suggested, or for any public or quasi public position which he seeks or for which he is suggested, and have no legitimate relation to or bearing upon any act done by him in a public or quasi public capacity. The foregoing is not designed as a wholly accurate or exhaustive definition, since that which must ultimately in a vast number of cases become a ques- tion of individual judgment and opinion is incapable of such definition ; but it is an attempt to indicate broadly the class of matters referred to. Some things all men alike are entitled to keep from popular curiosity, whether in public life or not, while others are only private because the persons concerned have not assumed a position which makes their doings legitimate matters of public investigation.^ 2. The right to privacy does not prohibit the communication of any matter, though in its nature private, when the publication is made under circumstances which would render it a privileged communication according to the law of slander and libel. Under this rule, the right to privacy is not invaded by any publication made in a court of justice, in legislative bodies, or the committees of those bodies ; in municipal assemblies, or the com- mittees of such assemblies, or practically by any communication made in any other public body, municipal or parochial, or in any body quasi public, like the large voluntary associations formed ' '• Celui-la seul a droit au silence absoluqui n'a pas expressement ou indirectment provoqu6 ou authorise 1* attention, ^approbation ou lebldme." Circ. Mins. Just., 4 Juin, 1 868. Riviere Codes Francjais et Lois Usuelles, App. Code Pen. 20 n ( b). The principle thus expressed evidently is designed to exclude the wholesale investiga- tions into the past of prominent public men with which the American public is too fa- miliar, and also, unhappily, too well pleased ; while not entitled to the " sil nee absolu " which less prominent men may claim as their due, they may still demand that all the de- tails of private life in its most limited sense shall not be laid bare for inspection.
