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Show THE LIBEL CASE. A Jury Hearing the Irvine vs Enquirer Suit. J. C. GRAHAM TESTIFIES That His Circulation is Very Big and That the Libelous Matter Wai Published Pub-lished Only in the Daily Issue of His Paper Other Court Business at Net hi. Xephi, Utah, May 21. Special to The Dispatch. James Littlie, the young man who was on Saturday last found guilty of fornication by a jury was today sentenced to forty dayB imprisonment. im-prisonment. The victim of Littlie's lust is a young Miss Warner of Moroni, and a cripple. The girl is euciente. Time to prepare a statement on a motion for a new trial of the Jungk & Fabain vs. Reid & Cropper case was extended ex-tended to June 11th. A number of new petit jurors were examined as to their statutory qualifications qualifi-cations and sworn in. This buiness trancacted the BIG PKOVO LIBEL SUIT, known in court under the title of K.K. Iryine vs The Enquirer et al, was taken up and a jury empaneled. It took some over an hour to secure the twtlve men. They are: Fred J. Christensen, Thomas Crane, lleury Dahle, Nels Hulser. II. A. Barron, Ed. Bartholomew, J. W Harper, Builber Ourietensen, J. B. Pemberton, Joseph Gee, Wm. Murton, ltalph Archibald, The jury empaneled, a brief recess was taken pending the arrival of the U. P. train which brought into Neyhi some twenty-five Provoites, the great majority of whom were interested in thiB case as pricipals, witnesses, etc. Immediately upon the convening of court the plaintiff's attorney, M. M. Warner went before the jury to state the case when THE FIRST TlLT ensued. Sutherland for the dafendants, objected claiming t hat in this case the deieudants, had the right to open and close the case. Some arguments followed, fol-lowed, but the judge ruled in favor of plaintiff. Mr. Warner proceeded then without interruption reviewing the incidents of the case as he expected to prove them. He expected to show that the writers lor the Enquirer had attacked the plaintiff plain-tiff R. R- Irvine without cause and had published falsehoods concerning him, accusing him wrongfully of tampering with the ballots that were cast at the late election in the Fitth municipal ward of Proyo, taking from the box illegally two ballots, etc,, etc. All this wasdone.saii Mr. Warner with other lioelous publications relative to his business transctions with the city of Provo with malice and intent to injure in-jure Mr. Irvine's business reputation. In proving malice Mr. Warner said he would show that since the planting of this suit the Enquirer had evidenced malice toward Mr, Irvine in its reference re-ference to hiia particularly in reference to this suit. Jt would be shown that the defendants' answer to thi3 complaint com-plaint in this case was published in full, leaded and spread out with flam ing headlines that were in themselves libelous and showed malice upon the part of the writer of them beyond the question of a doubt. Here occurred A HOT WORDY BATTLE. Mr, Sutherland objected to counsel talking thus to the jury and held that in this r.ase it would not be proper to allow the plaintiff to offer in evidence anything that has been published in the Enquirer since the tiling of the complaint iu this case. The court ruled against Mr. Sutherland. JOHN C. GRAHAM was the first witness called by the prosecution to the great surprise of all. In answer to questions put by Mr. Warner, Mr. Graham testified that he is manager of the Provo Enquirer and occupied such position during all of November last and since, He swore that the circulation of the Daily En-q-iirer was 1150 copies mostly iu Prove. That the alleged libelous articles atd paragraphs referred to in the complaiut in this case were printed and published in tl B Da ly Euquirer on the days and dttes mentioned in the complaint, but were not published in the semi-weekly issue of the Enquirer. This last statement, given by Mr, Graham while under oath, will sound strange to many Provo people who have read the articles referred to in U.e semi-weekly Enquirer. However, it is a point that does not count in the case as the complaint alleges publication publica-tion only in the Dally Enquirer. As to the circulation of the Daily Enquirer En-quirer being 1150 copies, Mr. Graham would have been nearer right had he I left off the first figure one and said that he had a circulation of 150 copies in Provo. It takes a heap bigger town than Provo to buy 1000 copies daily of any one daily paper. Ogden doesn't do it and Provo never has done it. Mr. R. R. Irvine, the plaintiff, was anout to be called as the second witness, wit-ness, when it wb found that adjournment adjourn-ment time had arrived. He will be called this afternoon and will undoubtedly undoubt-edly be kept upon the stand some considerable con-siderable time. It is not expected here that this case will terminate until at least Tuesday evening. |