AN AMERICAN LAW COURT.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume 3, Issue 308, 1 July 1879, Page 3

AN AMERICAN LAW COURT.

We cannot speak top highly (sayß an American! paper) of the new model for a court-of justice, just completed by those prominent' yMing architects", -Chizel and Repp," and to be shortly submitted for adoption by the authorities. Recent local trials have demonstrated .that the introduction of certain long 1 needed improvements in the construction of judicial halls can no longer be delayed.. In tbe plan referred to the presiding magistrate is; encased in a moveable.ironclad turret, mounted upon the "bench, and pierced with portholes for the free Use of the revolver.' ■ Underneath this is a' Catling gun arranged so as to rake an entire court-room, when the necessity of preserving order becomes very great, and is worked by a pedal upon which the judge's feet rest. The witness-box is conetruction of the best half-inch boiler iron snd is provided with an acoustic tube through which answers can.ba given when the circumstances of the cross-examination require that the deponent be protected from the pistol of the defendant. The jury-box is supplied with 12 moveable iron shields, warranted impervious to any ordinary bullets and equipped with improved broechr loaders to repel witnesses. The attorneys and spectators are" respectively protected with breastworks niade of four-inch steel plates, backed with oak, and the lawyers and sheriffs supplied with a neat article of cast-iron helmet, stout enough to shiverthe thickest cane known to the bar. As can be imagined, the adoption of these conveniences will expedite business in our tribunals to a wonderful extent. The interminable interruptions for the purpose of seti'lin*"** some legal point with the bowieknife or club, now so common, win be vastly lessened in frequency. It is obvious

to the most ordinary understanding that th e present practice of chasing objectionable witnesse- out of the room with revolvers, and the habit attorneys have fallen into of pitching the Judge out of the window every time he- makes an adverse ruling, cannot go on for ever. More protection is absolutely necessary for counsel when engaged in insulting the "wives of spectators. Last week, for illustration, Colonel Banger, the distinguished criminal lawyer,went into the Thirty-fifth District Court,.shot down two counsel; aad knocked a juryman clear over the railing, as a starter, before he discovered that the case he was interested in wasn't on at all. . .