1% Verdict

"The General is crying," whispered sturdy citizens of Cobourg, Ontario, last week, as they stood in a packed throng at the local Court of Assizes. Within was General Sir Arthur William Currie, 52, once the peppery Commander-in-Chief of Canada's expeditionary force in France (1917-19), now the august Principal of famed McGill University, Montreal. Sir Arthur's eyes brimmed with tears of relief and triumph because he had just wiped a nasty smudge from his honor by winning a libel suit which has been reported in Canadian papers at Peaches-Browningesque length for many a week (TIME, March 26).

General Currie sued for $50,000 libel damages when a prominent news organ, the Port Hope Guide, charged last June that on the day the World War Armistice was signed (Nov. 11, 1918) there was "deliberate and useless waste of human life at [the capture of] Mons [by Canadian troops] for the glorification of the Canadian Headquarters Staff." This and supplemental statements were generally taken to mean that even after General Currie had knowledge of the signing of the Armistice he ordered Canadian troops into an action during which several were killed on Armistice Day.

The Cobourg jury declared these charges libelous, awarded to Sir Arthur Currie $500, or 1% of the $50,000 for which he had sued.