The plaintiff pleaded that these words were meant and were understood to mean that the plaintiff had been guilty of heartless, cruel, and inhuman conduct, and that he was a person of violent and uncontrollable temper, callous to human suffering, and a bully
The defendants denied that the words complained of bore these meanings or any defamatory meaning, and they said that they were no libel. They set up the defence of fair comment, and justified the allegations of fact an which the fair comment was based in their natural and ordinary meaning; and with regard to the first alleged libel, which was said to be the report of a meeting of a Board of Guardians, they relied on the provisions of section 4 of the Law of Libel Amendment Act, 1888.