GARDINER'S CASE.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 1, Issue 85, 10 April 1880, Page 2

GARDINER'S CASE.

To the Editor.

Sir, —Can you explain how it happens that the remarkably pungent remarks made by Judge Johnston on the nature of the defence set up in the trial of Gardiner for horse stealing, at the Supreme Court, were not contained in either the report given by the “ Herald,” the “ Guardian,” or the “ Mail” of the trial, although they appear in both the “ Lyttelton Times” and the “Press”! In fact, lam told that, strong as it looks in those papers, even stronger language was used by his Honor on the occasion. These observations give the case an entirely different complexion to that it wears in your report, and it is just a little singular that, while the Christchurch papers should afford them so much prominence, they should be conspicuous by their absence from the Ashburton journals.—l am, &c., Enquirer. [ln reply to the above, we have only to say that in condensing the reports of the Ashburton cases at the Supreme Court, all the evidence was omitted because it had been previously given in these columns, and everything else that could well be done without was omitted, to save room in the particular issue in which they appeared. The Judge’s remarks were included in the matter excluded solely for want of room, but since the matter has been pointed out to us, and to please our correspondent and anyone else who may feel with him, we give now the opinion of the Judge on the case ; —“The defence was really that the prisoner had been guilty of obtaining money under false pretences, and, though there had been a very disgraceful freud, he thought that, in point of law, as Friedlander’s title was not impeached, Higgins had no title to possession.” In directing the jury, his Honor said —“ There was no doubt of it that it was a most disgraceful fraud, in which the prisoner had taken the earnings of the prosecutor for property which he well knew was not his own, and over which he had given a mortgage. But, as he had said, as a matter of law, there was no evidence to support the charge of larceny.”