Massachusetts Spy And Worcester Advertiser

On the last day of the late term of the Court of Common Pleas, was tried an action to slander, between Rebecca Woodward, plaintiff and Rufus Wait, defendant. The declaration charged the defendant with having maliciously calumniated the character of the plaintiff, by publicly accusing her of the crime of theft. The defendant pleaded the general issue, and attempted to prove that the words spoken would not admit of the construction alleged by the plaintiff. After the arguments of counsel, in which the claim of the plaintiff to exemplary damages was lucidly and feelingly set forth, and the rights of the defendant ably urged, the Hon. Judge delivered the charge to the Jury, expounding the law of the case in his usual clear and eloquent style. After an absence of a short time, the Jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff of 100 dollars damages. It is due to the plaintiff to say, that her deportment throughout the trial, together with the evidence introduced in her behalf, was such as, long before the return of the verdict, to remove entirely from the minds of the audience, all suspicion of her guilt. Thrown comparatively alone upon the world, she depended upon her individual exertions, and the purity of her character, for her support but that character had been roughly and wantonly assailed. As her last resort, she appealed to a Court of Justice for redress, and it was promptly extended to her. Such, we trust, will ever be the event of unprovoked attacks upon the character of innocence.