judicial office as well as others. The public record of all for
whom votes are asked at a public election must be the subject of
open criticism, or there would be danger that unworthy men would
succeed. To treat such observations as have been quoted upon
opinions previously written by a candidate for re-election,
however unseemly or unjust, as a contempt of court would be
indirectly to impair the right of free suffrage.

If assertions published as to acts done or words said are false,
it does not follow that they are libellous. An honest mistake
may be a defense for such a misstatement.[Footnote: Briggs
_v._ Garrett, 111 Penn. State Reports, 404; 2 Atlantic
Reporter, 513.]

Judges of trial courts, when candidates for re-election, may
expect the publication of similar attacks on rulings which they
have made. The following dispatches, which appeared in the same
issue of a local newspaper in Pennsylvania in 1903, when a county
election was soon to occur, will sufficiently illustrate this:

HOT JUDICIAL FIGHT PROMISED FOR MERCER.
COUNTY WILL BE SCENE OF AN INTERESTING
STRUGGLE FOR SEATS IN THE
LEGISLATURE.

Sharon, Pa., Dec. 25.--From present indications the coming
judicial fight in Mercer County will be a bitter one. Public
interest centers in the efforts of Judge S. H. Miller and his
friends to secure a re-election, and the attempts of his
opponents to place A. W. Williams of Sharon on the bench