WELLINGTON.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3552, 27 November 1882, Page 3

WELLINGTON.

November 27

Tbe Government have received a cable from the Agent-General officially announcing the appointment of Sir William Jervois as Governor of New Zealand, and that his commission will be sent by the 'Frisco mail which leaves London on Thursday next, and is due here on the 10th. January.

At the Appeal Court to-day judgment was given in the Adams conspiracy case. Judge Johnston said the case was one of great importance, and came before tbe Court under embarrassing circumstances. As the jury found the defendants guilty their Honors were bound to assume, for the purposes of this case, that the charge against Longhurst was a false one, and moreover that the circumstances proved were sufficient to prove a charge of conspiracy if the girl had arrived at the legal age of discretion. The specified question reserved for the Court of Appeal to determine was whether the learned Judge ought not to have directed the acquittal of both defendants on the ground that the child was in law incapable of conspiring as alleged in the first count of the indictment. He held that it was repulsive to common sense to believe that the child conspired, confederated, and combined with her father to commit the crime, and he was therefore of opinion, on the whole, that there was no evidence incorporated in the case reserved which satisfied the requirements of law regarding the rebuttal of the prima Jaoie presumption of innocence which applied to children between the ages of seven and fourteen. He thought the learned Judge ought to have told the jury that there was no such evidence before them as would justify them, according to law in finding that the prima facie presumption of innocence must be rebutted, and accordingly the conviction ought to be quashed. Judges Gillies and Williams were also of opinion that the child was incapable ot conspiring, and that the Judge should have directed an acquittal of both prisoners. The conviction was thereupon quashed, and this brought the Crown cases reserved to a conclusion.

With regard to the changes made in the Government lusurance Department it is not intended to close the industrial I branch nor to limit its sphere of usefulness, but it will be worked in complete harmony with the ordinary branch, the object of the Government being to offer insurance in a form best suited to individual requirements. This would probably be gathered from previous telegrams. It is not intended at present to divide profits annually, but a scheme of insurance with deferred profits at rates lower than the non-participating rates of other officee is about to be introduced. Tne next division of profits will be made as on the 31st October, 1885. In accordance with recent legislation altering the currency of the financial year, the books will be closed on the 31st proximo and an account published for the six months which commenced on the Ist of July last. The new insurances for little more than four months of the period referred to exceed £400,000, and the business generally evinces lasting qualities. An extraordinary birth took place at Ohau on the 23rd instant. The wife of a settler bore twins joined together at the back. One child is doing well ; the other is poorly, but is coming round. They are both girls. At the Magistrate's Court to-day Thomas Thompson and John Morgan were charged with having in their possession forty gallons of whisky upon which the duty had not been paid, and were remanded till to-morrow.