Libel By Postal Card

A novel qnestion has recently been decided in the Irish High Court of Justice. The defendant was a trader, and the plaintiff, one oí his customers, owed the defendant a sum of money, for the payroent oí wliieh the defendant applied to him. The plaintiff, being uuwell, directed his wife to write to Un; defendant, sending him at the same time money in part payment of the sum due. The defendant, in reply to this letter, wrote in referonce to the balance, on a post eard (which was transmitted to the plaintiff through the postoffice) the Hbelous matter complained of: "Sir: Your plea of illness for not paying this trifle is mere moonshine. We vvill place the matter in ovir solicitor's hands if we have not stampa by retnrn, if it costs us ten times the qniount. T. Jones & Sons." The innnendo pnt upon this communication by the plaintiff was that it meant that the plaintiff. f alsely pretended that he was prevented by sickness from paying the defendants' demand, and that tho allcged sickness was a mere invention and sliam; and that the plfintiü' was an untruthíul person, and unable to discharge his debts, by reason of which the plaintiff had been injured in his eharaeter, credit and reputation, and in his profession. The cotirt said: "I am willing to assume that the averments in the statement of defense show that (he defendant had n interest in writing to the plaintiff tbe words complained of, but the publication that is to be justiíied is not a publication to the plaintiff but to other person?. I think that we ought to take judicial notice of the nature of a post cara; and, therefore, I see no reason for holding that a communication written on a post card is privileged. It would be a most eérious thing to lay down that a person may extend the sphere of circulation of defamatory matter because he wants to save a half-penny in postage." By'our own Federal statutes it is a misdemeanor for any one to mail a postal card containing any indecent or scnrrilous epithets, and the punishment denouneed is a line from one hundred to iive thousand dollars, or imprisonment from one year to ten years, or both. - Albany Law Journal. . ■+-+-+ All know that a lump of ice in a glass of water inelts veryslowly; but if divided into pea-sized ' picces and stirred round, it is molted with many Hmes greater rapidïty, eachpiece being dissolved from without inward, and the surface exposed to the water being multifold greater. So it is with the food in the stomaeh, the juices of which develop it for the purpose of reducing it to liquid form, to prepare it for yielding its nourishment to tho system; the more numerous the pieee3, and the smaller, tbc greater will be the amount of surface exposure, and tho more rapidly will it be dissolved; henee the reason for nhewing the food wcll.- Health and Home-. - A lady in Middletown, Conn., the other day made an ffigy of aman, and by night put it mider i peach tree to scare away boys wlü had been stealing the fruit. " Shë went away to make a cali, and on returning forgot what she had done, and was so frightened by the appearance ander the tree of what she thought was a real man that she did not dare to enter tlic yard nntil she had callod upon a malt; fricad to BOOOmpany