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Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume V, Issue 423, 10 August 1880, Page 3

Says a .Southern contemporary:— • Magistrates ever will differ. We notice, that within a few days two Stipendiary Magistrates dealt the law in a peculiarly different manner, in the same week -the two following convictions wore recorded. At Dunedin, a boy was sentenced by the local R.M.,Mr I. N. Watt, of southern notoriety, to three months imprisonment, for sleeping in a brewery. At Timaru a boy was uentenced to a few hours' imprisonment for larceny from a shop, the Resident Magistrate handing him over to parental authority. In the case of. the Dunedin lad, the father had petitioned the Government for a remission of the sentence, which petition, without a doubt, will be favorably considered. Apother exemplification of the glorious uncertainties, not of the law, not of the lawyer, but of the law administrators under this sunny sky of ours.

Wanganui must be a highly cheerful place to live in—whether on account of its atrocious river bar, the depressing influence of its sand hills, or the vile quality of its liquors, we are not in a position to say, though probably a combination of all three will be found to account for the matter. We should only weary our readers were we to refer once more to the number of lunatics exported from Wanganui, but it may interest bur readers to know that its death rate is 3.12 per 1000, or far and away the worst in the colony. It is nearly twelve times worse than Timaru (whose death rate by the way is the lowest in the colony); seven times worse than Invercargill ; three times worse than Oamaru, the Thames, Napier, or even Christchurch aud Auckland ; and twice as bad as Wellington, Dunedin, or Nelson. Hokitika, Caversham, and Lyttelton are not far behind it, but the ghastly palm must be awarded to WanJ ganui.