—And moreover, says J. J., a postcard is publication.
15th cast. page 264, line 1075.
—And moreover, says J. J., a postcard is publication. It was held to be sufficient evidence of malice in the testcase Sadgrove v. Hole. In my opinion an action might lie.
Six and eightpence, please. Who wants your opinion? Let us drink our pints in peace. Gob, we won’t be let even do that much itself.
Episode 12. The Citizen, Joe Hynes and others are drinking in Barney Kiernan's. J.J.O'Molloy, a solicitor and Ned Lambert have just come in. Mr. Breen, who received an anonymous prank postcard this morning, is hanging around the front of the bar, trying to sue for libel.
The first is a line from O'Molloy. He
argues whether a postcard addressed to Breen could be libel. What kind of case
is Sadgrove v. Hole?
I did a search. It says that libel requires publication, and that a postcard addressed to a third party, by which no stranger unacquainted with the circumstances would have known to whom it referred, does not constitute publication and is not libel. As the postcard was addressed to Mr. Breen himself, it is difficult to see how this case could be taken in his favour. Publication and Defamation (ezinearticles.com)
The message on the postcard is visible to the postman, so it might be libel.
The second is the narrator's thoughts in
this episode.
The narrator of episode 12 has no name and it
is not stated who he is..
Japanese translator, Naoki Yanase argued
that this narrator is a "dog". (Solving the Mystery of James
Joyce, 1996) This was a tremendously interesting book.
I'm still not sure if it's a dog or not so far.
Whether the narrator is a man or a dog, it
is also doubtful whether he is drinking in a bar. It is a thrill to decipher it.
This passage also seems to suggest that he is drinking, but we can't be sure.
What is six shillings and eight pence? I did a search for this too.
In the Middle Ages, there was gold coin called”
noble” in England, and one noble was the fee for lawyer. It was worth 1/3
pound. Counting money in England is difficult because it is not based on the
decimal system: a pound is 20 shillings, a shilling is 12 pence, and 1/3 pound
is 80 pence, or six shillings and eight pence. So it has been customary to say
that a lawyer's fee is six shillings and eight pence.
Why is a lawyer's fee six and eight pence?
This is one of the cigarette cards, which were included in cigarette packages as freebies at the beginning of the 20th century. It looks like a series of trivia.
The method of this blog ⇒ Here
