In such cases the jury assess the damage on a guess as to the value of the injury done the good name. The words, the circum stances under which they were said, what they mean, the one who spoke them and the one to whom they are said are consid ered, and injury is estimated in good con science and aggravating circumstances are specially punished. Second, there are words not actionable in themselves, which do not impute some criminal offense, but which have been uttered so that injury followed the utterance. In such cases the injured party must prove the loss or damage he has sustained thereby, and the market value of the words is estimated and determined from the evidence of the value of the injury sus tained. In either way, the legal market value of speech expressed in dollars and cents is arrived at. In many States there are laws which fail to provide for the occupation of tramping, hence to be a tramp and beg for daily bread is to be an outlaw and an outcast. In such States it would be a disgraceful name to apply to any one who supposed they moved in some other strata of society. We are all travellers, but not every traveller is a tramp, or as the latter might express it, not every tramp is a hobo. Of course it would be a far greater injury to a woman, whose social ambitions frequently outrank and outclass those of men, to be called a tramp. At any rate, the value of calling a woman "you are a vagrant" was rated at $100. If the plaintiff had been a man it is dollars to doughnuts the verdict would have been six cents. Many of us would rather be spendthrifts than misers. There is the semblance of more humanity and heart about him who scatters than him who hoards. Notwithstand ing this, it will do more material harm to be called a spendthrift than a miser, for the
former is a reflection upon one's business methods and the rating to be given his credit, while a miser's financial rating is as sured. Hence when it was said, " The sheriff will sell him out one of these days and claims against him not sued on will be lost," the remark was listed at $45. Smuggling is only a mala prohibita. Ac cording to popular ideas the American is supposed to be an adept at the prohibita, holding it no disgraceful thing to try to get foreign goods into the country without the payment of duty. The only disgraceful thing about it is to be caught, to find out that one was not as smart as he thought he was. However, when it was said he " had a room in which were two beds and both beds were full of leather he had smuggled away at the time of appraisement," the speech was put down as worth $100. As long as there are two men on the face of the earth, so long will there be disputes about line fences, for there is nothing a mortal loves better, from the time of taking title until his dying moments, than to insin uate that he was entitled to a few more me tres of ground than he had. Where it was said, " He moved the line and he made a new line," in a conversation about boundary trees and landmarks, it was scheduled at a fire-sale price of $6. However, where a somewhat similar remark was coupled with the aggravation, " Be a man, or a monkey, or a long-tailed rat," it was knocked down at $500. When it comes to paying for your slanders it would seem to be cheaper to do it boldly on your own hook than Adam-like to lay it at the doors of an anonymous another. A jury will give you more consideration if they can look straight at you and will not have to follow you around a corner to get a' glimpse at you. " If I have not been mis informed, the plaintiff had a bastard child,"
