A STRANGE DECISION.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume IV, Issue 1072, 12 October 1883, Page 2

A STRANGE DECISION.

To the Editor. FIR,—In your leading article of yesterday’s issue under the above heading you saw fit to criticise the conduct and decision of our worthy Resident. Magistrate in the recent charge against Thomas Dunn for cruelly ill-treating a cat. Now, Sir, I know well that the very breath of an editor’s nostrils is criticism,, and that our dispensers of law and justice when they err Giave no more right to claim exemption from criticism than any ordinary mortal. But I think eve i an editor’s criticism should proceed upon a correct basis of facts, for if it does not, whether adverse or otherwise to the person subjected to it, it is unfair. It is becau e I conceive your criticism does not comply with this condition that I feel it my duty to enter my protest against your article. Personally and professionally I could ask for no higher compliments than are paid to me indirectly by your article, but even at the risk of disabusing your mind and the minds of your readers of the idea that “Mr Baddeley can be so impressed with what Mr Caygill says as to reverse his decision and adjudge to be a mere drunken freak what twenty-four hours before was considered to be a gross act of cruelty, calling for severe punishment.” I feel bound !to say in justice to a gentleman whose position forbids him to say a word in his own defence ani whose conduct on the Bench has fully earned all the ecomiutns which you have bestowed upon him, that your criticisms however just or well deserved they might be, if the facts were as stated by you, are both unfair and undeserved, for the - very simple reason that the facts were otherwise. In the first place you seem to think that the re-hearing was granted because some doubt arose as to the guilt of the accused. Such was not the case. The re-hearing was applied for and granted on two grounds—first, that the prisoner when tried had not been in a condition to comprehend tha real nature of the proceedings ; and, second, that evidence was forthcoming which there was no opportunity of collecting for the previous trial (the tnan had been arrested at. nine a. m., and tried at eleven a.m. the same day), and which while it did not touch the actual guilt of the prisoner, yet ought in all fairness to be taken into consideration in mitigation of punishment. These were the real facts as to the rehearing, and Mr Baddeley, I think, can well afford to leave the public to judge

whether or not he acted according to the spirit of our constitution, which says that every man shall have a fair trial. As to whether the Magistrate could legally exercise this power J am not going to be so unprofessional as to ssy without a fee, but I will only express my regret that before penning that sentence you did not take the opinion of your, reporter, who would have been able to save you from exhibiting your ignorance of such a common occurrence as a re-hearing. I pass rfver another misstatement, that I argued “ that cutting off cats’ tails was simply an act of larrikhiiam,” with a mere denial as this only concerns myself, and with so many generous -compliments I-must not grumble at one left-handed one. You proceed to say “ that excessive drinking might be a reason for a man committing an illegal; act we can quite understand, bat we never heard if put forward 93 an excuse. Mr Baddeley hewever, is of a different opinion, etc.” In the first place, Bir, I must complain of the loose terms and expressions used in above sentence. “"Vou can understand that excessive drinking might be a reason for committing an illegal actso can T, but it would be when the excessive drinking was over and the drinker was suffering a recovery. In most cases where excessive drinking is connected with crime, the drinking may be the occasion or cause of the crime being committed, but the crime is committed without any rhyme or reason. Again, Sir. I must complain of your word “excuse.” If you mean by this a defence or complete answer to the charge snch as would establish the innocence of the accused, then I doubt not that you are quite right in saying that you - never heard of excessive drinking beinjg put forward in this way. And let me add that your experience is yet to j come. This absurdity certainly did hot take place at the Ashburton Resident Magistrate’s. Court on Wednesday. If, however, you used this word “ excuse ” in its popular sshse as meaning the pleading of some circumstances which go to reduce the criminality while not denying the fact of the offence, then I must again express my regret that you did not think fit to consult your reporter before penning the sentence, as a very short acquaintance with Courts of Justice, without fany profound reading of law, .would have taught him that while our law' does not recognise drunkenness as a defence to any crime, yet it inky be taken into consideration as showing the criminal intent or otherwise with which an abt is done. ’ The point of your article which you wish to emphasise that “what the Magistrate considered on Tuesday to be a gross act of cruelty, caUipgjfor .-severe,punishment, Istyrentyfour hours’ after adjudged to be a mere drunken freak V is another misstatement and extremely unfair,, to Mr Baddeley. Not even the; counsel for, the prisoner, contended that the act was anything lesq than: a gross act of cruelty, and much less did the Magistrate .adjudge it to be a mere drunken freak. If you will allow me, Sir, to give you..thogi ßt of the matter it is this, that after the hearing on Tuesday certain statements were made to the Magistrate which gave him the key to the man’s peculiar behaviour in the morning and led him to ; the-belief that the man had unfortunately, but through the fault of no one but himself, 1 not had a perfectly fair trial,; and on the rehearing .next day evidence was laid that the crime 1 was not the wanton deliberate act of such a callous , wretch as had at first appeared tb be the. case. Whether under all the circumstances the Magistrate was justified, not in reversing his decision as you allege, but in mitigating the sentence while still adhering to his decision that the act was a grossly cruel one, and that Dunn was legally guilty, I am content to leave.—l am, etc., ' John A^Caioh.!Oct. 12.