Crane v. Douglass

To an action on the case for slanderous words, the defendant, after the general issue, pleaded specially, that he had heard from one John Mapes the said several charges in the declaration mentioned, and that, at the several times of speaking the words, he had stated, in the presence of the same persons in whose hearing the words were spoken, that John Mapes told him so. To this plea the plaintiffs replied, that the defendant spoke and published the words falsely and maliciously, of his own wrongful and malicious disposition, and with a knowledge of their being false, and with the purpose and…