HOW A PENNY STAMP COST FIFTY POUNDS.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume V, Issue 441, 12 October 1880, Page 2

HOW A PENNY STAMP COST FIFTY POUNDS.

To the Editor of the Lyttelton Times.

Sir, —In the interests of trade generally, cases of the kind I refer to being of very frequent occurrence, I will be glad if you can afford space for the following, illustrating, as it does, the heading I have placed to this letter. ,

Last February I applied, to a Mr Ackerman, at Pleasant Point, for settlement of an account, and in part payment he gavo me an order on a person named Orton. The order ran thus :—

"Feb. 21,1880.

"Mr R. Orfon—Please pa}' Baird and Co. the sum of £25 on my account.

" (Signed) John Ackerman."

I called Orton in and asked him if lie owed the ni'noiint. He replied that he did, hut could tiot pay for two or three weeks. I then wrote across the order " correct,' and Orton nigned his name to it. No one in the hotel having a penny duty stamp, I brought the order awny with the intention of having , it stamped at a future time. When it was presented to Orton for payment lie was either unwilling or unable to pay it, and upon his failing to pay me, I sued him upon the order in the Resident Magistrate's Court, Tiinaru, having previously stamped it. Orton's solicitor raised the objection that the order should have been stamped when made. The Resident Magistrate gave judgment in our favour, holding that the document might be stamped after execution upon payment of the line, and Oiton appealed. This was on April 14, and yesterday (five and α-hnlf months after) the matter came before the Judge in Banco, who reversed the judgment of the Court below, and allowed th ■-, appeal with costs; which simply means that we are defrauded of the £25 due to us (Ackerman having filed and Orton given a bill of sale over his effects in the interim), besides being saddled with all the costs and expenses of proceeding to Tiinaru in the first instance, and prosecuting our case there, and now of this appeal. And why ? Because we did not do an impossibility, viz., affix a penny stamp to the order when no such stamp was obtainable. There is np pretence that any attempt was made to defraud the revenue, as before the order was Biicd upon it was-duly stamped, and the fine was paid. Yet, notwithstanding than an able and experienced Magistrate like Mr Beetham, with the whole evidence before him, gives a judgment in the interests of equity and good conscience, the superior Court, with nothing but the bare facts relative to the stamping before it, feels constrained to allow the appeal and revorses the previous decision with costs. Why with costs? No injustice had been done to the appellant; the Magistrate's decision waa founded on facts and evidence ; surely the appellant was lucky enough to get off paying his just debts without our being mulcted in costs. This may be law, but it is an outrage on justice and common sense.

And now to consider this law itself; and if this should come under the notice of the fraternity, I can picture to myself their bland smile of conscious superiority, derived from the immense stores of legal acumen and profound learning so universally possessed by the members of the profession; but gentlemen, permit mo to say that as, ne matter who dances or sings, it is " we," the public, who have to pay the piper, there is no reason whatever

why we Hhould not have an opinion on the matter, aye, and express the same when necessary. In fact it seems to mo that commercial men ought to initiate and enthusiastically support, by their regular attendance, a Legal Mutual Improvement Society, so that they may in time acquire correct ideas in the three great questions. —When to write; how to write; and what to write ; as the al 'surdities perpetrate! , in the name of the law, and the still greater monstrosities in the shape of the bills of costs (see Travers in Wellington) render it dangerous for a man to sign his name to any document whatever

At the same time that I have felt called upon to make these remarks upon the case, I desire also to express the highest respect for and the most thorough confidence in his Honor Judge Johnston, who heard the case,-—I am etc.,

M'VEY BAIRD,

Suffolk Brewery, Oct. 2,