THE RESIDENT MAGISTRACY.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume III, Issue 691, 18 July 1882, Page 2

THE RESIDENT MAGISTRACY.

To the Editor. Sib, —It is about time that the people of Ashburton bestirred themselves to get a Resident Magistrate stationed here. Since Mr Wood’s departure Ashburton seems, legally speaking, to have been converted into a dependency of Timaru, with which it possesses nothing in common, and which lies at a most inconvenient distance from our town. The arrangement might have been endurable as a temporary measure, but it is rather too much of a joke when we find that, month after month, a flying visit once a week is all that the acting Resident Magistrate can afford us, while we are frequently deprived of even that small mercy, and the, cases of suitors, who may possibly have conn with their witnesses from a distance of ten or twenty miles, are either adjourned to a future day or left to be adjudicated upon by a Bench of Justices, who may be very worthy persons in their way, but are much better qualified to look after their stores or offices than to administer laws of which they know little or nothing. A very small quantum of “Justices’ justice” goes a long way with most people, and if we only regard the handsome contribution to the public revenue in the shape of Court fees and fines which is paid by the Ashburton Court, the district is fully entitled to the regular services of an experienced Resident Magistrate, who would make the town of Ashburton his head quarters.—l am, etc., Settles.