LAW FOR JOURNALISTS. By Charles Piney. (Pitman. 5s. net.) This
is an excellent work ; it is certainly necessary for any reporter, or sub-editor, or contributor to a paper to be acquainted with some such practical manual ; and Mr. Pilley's book will probably interest anyone who wishes to know the restrictions and safeguards of the " liberty of the Press." The chief legal problems which a. journalist must master are those of copyright, libel, and contempt of court ; and Mr. Pilley quotes many actual cases to elucidate the law. A dramatic critic was mulcted in damages for writing of a popular actress that in . an especially dramatic moment she "appeared to be biting her toe-nails on the stage," but it was held to be fair criticism to say of a novel that it was " the very worst attempt at a novel that has ever been perpetrated, and to denounce it for " its insanity, self-complacency and vulgarity, its profanity, its indelicacy, its display of bad Latin, bad French, bad German and bad English." Any person advertising a reward for the return of stolen goods and saying that no questions will be asked, or anyone printing or publishing such an advertisement, is liable to a fine of £50. It has been held defamatory, in certain circumstances, to call a man " an honest lawyer for the libel lies in the innuendo, and anyone who hopes to escape prosecution by the use of irony is very much misguided.
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