M. Gambetta has again appeared as an advocate, having accepted
a brief from a friend, M. Challemel Lacour, who claimed 10,000 francs damages from a newspaper which described him falsely as a gambler who does not pay his debts. No justifica- tion was offered, and the tribunal awarded the full damages claimed. The incident was noteworthy, because of the speech made by M. Gambetta, which contained a kind of declaration of policy as to the law of libel. M. Gam- betta advocated in the strongest manner a resort to the English system, under which libellers are kept in check not by cruel laws, but by the risk of pecuniary payments to the victims. He believed that this practice would suppress the practice much more surely than any severity in the criminal law. He is very probably right. Frenchmen dislike forced payments above all things, and it has often been alleged that if opinion allowed the enforcing of the very severe civil law against duels, duelling would cease. The pleasure of firing at an insulter would be overbalanced by the pain of paying the value of his life to his family.
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