The Daily Telegraph. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 31, 1883.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3605, 31 January 1883, Page 2

The Daily Telegraph. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 31, 1883.

The recent cases before the Resident Magistrate's Court, in which the Inspector laid three separate informations for alleged breaches of the Rabbit Nuisance Act, will serve to show landowners that the law is not to be regarded as a dead letter in this district. In two of the cases convictions were obtained and fines inflicted. The third case was dismissed. A perusal of the report of the proceedings, as published in the Daily Telegraph of Monday last, will show that the Act is very stringent, and that it anus the Inspector with very great power. The law, however, seems clear enough, and very little option is left to a magistrate but to convict when an Inspector affirms that in his opinion sufficient measures have not been taken to destroy rabbits. A case occurred lately in the Wellington provincial district which strikingly illustrates the operation of the law, and which was argued before the Chief Justice sitting in Banco. The report of His Honor's judgment tells its own story. The case was Sutten (the Inspector and appellant) v. Thompson (the respondent and landowner). Respondent, a landowner in the "Wairarapa county, received notice from the appellant, an Inspector under the Rabbit Nuisance Act, 1882, requiring him to destroy the rabbits on his land. An information was afterwards laid charging that the respondent did not immediately, upon the service of such notice, commence to do all such acts as in the opinion of the appellant were necessary to destroy the rabbits on the said land in the shortest time possible. The information was dismissed, and the Inspector appealed. The case on appeal stated the following facts: the appellant caused one James Harvey to serve a notice under section 8 of the Rabbit Nuisance Act, 18S2. Harvey served the notice, and subsequently visited the land and found the rabbits _ as numerous as the time of serving the notice. Neither the Inspector nor Harvey intimated to the defendant what acts were necessary in the opinion of complainant, as Inspector, in order to destroy the rabbits in the shortest time possible. The. information was dismissed on tho: ground of the defendant not being informed what acts were necessary in the opinion of complainant. On this the appellant appealed. His Honor

the Chief Justice said "the Act doesnotprovide that the land owner shall do what he is told to do, but what the Inspector thinks he ought to do. It is a matter of opinion of the Inspector which he need not express to the landowner. • ■ This being a penal statute a strict construction must be put upon its provisions. I think the magistrate has erred; the notice is to destroy the rabbits. What is required is to destroy rabbits. The penalty is not for not immediately destroying rabbits—time is given, apparently a month. Ido not think the Inspector has to point out the mode in which the rabbits are to be destroyed. The landowner chooses his mode. He subjects himself to a penalty if the mode he chooses is not to the satisfaction of the Inspector. It is not more extraordinary that he should be the person to say whether the mode is proper than that he should be the person to say whether rabbits still exist. The offence it not taking the necessary steps. The Legislature probably anticipated that the landowner would choose his own mode, and that the Inspector would say whether it was efficient or not. The form of the notice also seems to show that the Inspector is not to indicate the mode to be adopted. Case remitted to the magistrate, with opinion of the Court that the information ought not to have been dismissed on the grounds stated in the case."