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Show LIBEL LAW OF AUSTRALIA. Inhabitants Who Have Little Prldo of Ancestry Are Amply Protected. Tho libel law of Australia Is tho queerest lu the world. Ho who la sued for libel thore must not only prove thnt tho accusations he puo-llshed puo-llshed were true, uut also that to publish pub-lish them was for the public beenflt. Elsewhere the truth of the accusation alone needs to bo proved. An Australian sheep rnlscr explained this queer libel law at a wool sale. "Australia was practically colonized by convicts," ho said. "There is no denying this. The colonizers of Australia Aus-tralia were convicts in the main. "The descendants of these convicts are now Australia' leading families, tho richest, tho most Influential, tho most intelligent, the most respected. And yet these excellent people were in tho past at the mercy of every editor. Let them get Into the smallest squabble squab-ble or dispute with somo editor, and the man would bring them into general gen-eral ridicule and contempt by printing print-ing tholr ancestry, by showing that Sir John Smith's grent-graudfather had been sent out for robbing an old woman of seven dollars, or that Judgo Brown's greataunt, while employed ar n servant girl, hnd tried to poison her master's son, with whom she was In love. "I Is undeniably truo that tho best Australians have convict blood In their veins. The newspapers that they quarreled quar-reled with used to taunt them with their convict blood. Henco the present pres-ent queor libel law, which protects them, for of course It can never be for tho good of tho public that the grandmother of Judgo So-and-So or tho grent-unclo of Dr. Blank was a convict." |
