increasing his sufferings by the sad reflec tion that the slander upon the father also slanderously taints the mental condition of plaintiff's children"; and most of all that this was said in the presence of the Countess (was she not contributorily negligent?); and finally that the defendant well knew it was "totally untrue, atrocious, actionable, and most malignant in its mendacity." He was modest to ask for all this only$iO,000. But the court sustained a demurrer for want of an averment of special damage, limiting the cases of recovery on account of a false charge of disease to "the plague, leprosy, and venereal disorders." The action against Nickerson was for send ing him a notice of motion in an envelope on which was printed a picture of a jackass with the word "secessionist" under it. He also sued Gov. Andrew for libel. The Count had better fortune in his ac tion against The Bee Printing Company, of Boston, to which may be found an allusion in his brief in Hamilton v. Third Ave. R. Co., 53 N. Y. 25, in which he spoke of it as "the memorable action for libel," and in which juries awarded him, as a salve for the stings of the outrageous Bee, verdicts of $2500, $1500, and $2000. The Count was thus fortunate not only in extracting one cause of action for slander out of another, as in the Nickerson case, but in furnishing precedents in his own person, as in the Hamilton case. In the latter case, on the question of exemplary damages, he referred to an English case where a verdict of £500 was sustained for knocking a man's hat off, on the Royal Exchange, because such ex emplary damages tend to prevent duelling. His brief in the Hamilton case is a very sane and judicious one, without the slightest exhibition of eccentricity, which leaves one to suspect that he did not make it. The Count also sued the proprietors of the New York " Times " for libel, and recovered a verdict in 1875 (but a new trial was "ranted on account of a misdirection of the
judge). (Johannes v. Jennings, 6 Thomp. & Cook, 138.) I find no subsequent trace of the action. It will thus be seen that the juries were generally on the side of the Count, and gave him large damages, probably being of opinion that when people choose to make wanton fun of others' infirmities, they should be compelled to pay for the privilege. The Count's name appears as plaintiff in two other cases in New York, one against Day (3 Robertson, 650), and the other against Fisk {ibid. 710), both involving mere points of practice. The latter was an action for libel; the nature of the former does not appear. In 6 Allen appears a group of four ac tions brought by the Count against Under wood, Pangborn and Mudge respectively, chiefly involving practice questions, all de termined adversely to the Count. The action against Underwood was for libel expressed as follows: "There flourishes a soi-disant count with his decorations given by the Grand Duke of Pumpernickel, or bought from some similar august potentate." In the action against Pangborn he recovered twenty dollars, and it was held that he could have no costs. In the Mudge case it appeared that the defendants, sued for libel, employed the Count, who was not an attorney at law, to defend them, by virtue of a special power of attorney, on the parol agreement that he should charge nothing for his services. It is said that the Count was finally suspended from practice in New York for barratry. The Count's first love was the theatre, and on his removal to New York he set up as a teacher of dramatic " hart" (as he called it). Mr. Willard records that when playing Romeo at the Boston Theatre, having gone down on his knees, he had to be assisted to his feet on account of the stiffness of his joints. This reminds one of Gibbon, who went down on his knees to a lady who had to help him up because he was so fat.
