parts of the city had been threatened with death. In the case of Rex V. Williams, 5 B. and A. 597, when a publication stated that upon the death of Her late Majesty none of the bells of the several churches in Durham were tolled, and ascribed this omission to the clergy, and then proceeded to make some very severe observations on that body, a criminal information was granted; and in Rex V. Burdett, 4 B. and A. it was held that it was a libel to impute crime to any of the King's troops, though it did not define what troops in particular were referred to, and that the innuendo of "the said troops" meant the undefined part of those troops. In Rex V. Jenour 7 Mod. 400, Lec. C. J. observed:- "When a paper is published equally reflecting upon a number of people it reflects upon all readers according to their different opinions may apply it so, and other decisions in which classes of the public had sought redress for calumnious charges. The jury would, therefore, accept from him the principle that a libel might be levelled against a class as against an individual. He would now ask them to decide whether or not the libel pointed to the Indigo planters of Lower Bengal. This, and all circumstances connected with the pamphlet, the Jury would have to decide.
A criminal intention is the essence of the offence of libel, and this question the jury would have to decide. Lord Mansfield in delivering the judgement of the Court in Rex V. Woodfall, 5 Burr, 2661, observed: "When an act, in itself indifferent, becomes criminal when done with a particular intent, then the intent must be proved and found. But when the act in itself is unlawful, as in the case of a libel, the proof of justification or excuse lies on the defendant, and in failure thereof the law implies a criminal intent." Lord Mansfield, in the same case, expresses himself further: "There may be cases where the publication may be justified or excused as lawful or innocent, for no act which is not criminal, though the paper be a libel, can amount to such a publication of which a defendant ought to be found guilty." The doctrine, thus clearly expressed, has always been considered as a settled principle of Law. In Rex V. Crecevy, I. M. and T., 272, Lord Ellenborough stated: "The only question is whether the occasion of the publication rebuts the inference of malice arising from it." Mr. Justice Le Blanc says: "where the publication is defamatory, the law infers malice, unless anything
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