The Enquirer

January 21.

On Wednesday came on in the court of oyer and terminer, then sitting in this city, the long depending cause between the People of the State of New-York and Dr. Angelis, for a libel against one William L. Simers, by representing him as an ignorant quack, and as being guilty of fraudulently selling a spurious composition as and for the Four Herb Pills of the defendant; thereby injuring the good name, fame, and reputation of the said Wm. L. Simers. The court allowed the truth to be given in evidence; and upon the testimony of three of the most respectable physicians in New-York, the first part of the charge was satisfactorily proved. The charge of fraud not being so clearly made out, the jury returned a verdict against the defendant, and fined him five dollars. The examination of witnesses in this cause, and the pleasantry of the counsel on both sides, kept the court in such convulsions of laughter as were not restrained without difficulty. Even the gravity of the bench could not always be preserved.

Mr. Martin S. Wilkins assisted the public prosecutor; and---Mr. William W. Morton, Mr. Robert Bogardus, and Mr. Silvanus Miller, were of counsel for the defendant: but nothing like argument was urged by any of them, the matter in discussion being of too contemptible a nature to be treated seriously. The counsel, therefore, exercised their talent at biting sarcasm and bitter irony against quack-doctors, quack-medicines, pills, powders, and Restorative Balsams.---[Ib.