[57]
Many friends of
the prosecutor, some men, too, who are personal enemies of ours, many
general and universal calumniators, and men who envy everybody, have
invented heaps of things. But there is nothing which travels so fast as
slander; nothing is more easily sent abroad, nothing is received more
rapidly, nothing is spread more extensively. Nor will I, if you can ever
trace the origin of a calumny, ever require you to disregard it or conceal
it. But if anything gets abroad without a head, or if there be any report of
such a nature that no author of it can be found; if he who has heard it
appears to you either so careless as to have forgotten where he heard it; or
if he knows his authority to be so insignificant that he is ashamed to
confess that he recollects who he is,—then I do beg of you not to
let that common expression, “I heard that
* * * *,” injure an innocent man upon his trial.
* * * *,” injure an innocent man upon his trial.
