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Slander

Slander image
Parent Issue
Day
15
Month
March
Year
1861
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

The followiüg act may now extort a smile, but less than two hundred years ago it was moro than a little serious. Happily in this day of high civilization and politeness wo have no oocasion lor it and most probably many even of our Virginia ladies may now hear of it for tho first time. It is, indoed, just possible that the law may have a place yct on tho statute book as a caution to tcoldt, if indeed the race be no, extinct. Tho fullowing Act of Assernbly was passed in Virginia in 1602: " An Aetfoi the Punishment of Standalfus Persons. "Whereas, many babbling women slander and scandalizo their neighbors, for which their poor husbands are often involved íd chargeable and vesations Buita and costs in great damages: " Be it thereforo onacted, by the authority aioresaid, that in auction of slander, occasioned by the wife, after judgraent passed for daraages, the women should be punished by ducking; and if th3 slander ehould be so enor mous as to be adjudged at a greater damage than five hundred pounds of tobáceo, then the woinan to sufler a ducking for each five hundred pounda of tobáceo adjudged against the husband, if ho rufuse to pay tho tabacco,"

Article

Subjects
Old News
Michigan Argus