Libel, Contempt

Slays for Slaps. A party in the Manhattan boarding house of a Mrs. Mabel McGowan ended in a shooting scrape. Headlined the New York Telegram: LANDLADY SLAYS HOST. Mrs. McGowan sued for $50,000, was denied it last week when the Telegram proved a typographical error had changed "slaps" to "slays."

1/30,000th. Instead of simply "a New York drug company," a story in the New York American indicated that "the York drug company" was involved in bootlegging. The York Drug Co. sued for $100,000, withdrew amicably last week when Hearst attorneys convinced them the error was unavoidable. A linotype machine had failed to cast the essential explanatory words because of a 1/30,000th-inch maladjustment.

Free Speech. In Los Angeles, Calif., the Record engaged the law firm headed by William Gibbs McAdoo, onetime U. S. Secretary of the Treasury, to defend it against contempt of court charges. Record editorials and cartoons had smitten the grand jury and prosecutor in an investigation of alleged corruption attendant upon the famed Julian Petroleum case. Defense : the grand jury and district attorney are not The Court. Snorted Publisher Henry Birdice Richmond Briggs: "Next time, like enough, they will pretend that the bailiff who pounds the gavel and the scrubwoman who cleans out the judicial cuspidor is (sic) sacrosanct."

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