DISTRICT COURT, CLYDE.

Dunstan Times, Issue 647, 11 September 1874, Page 2

DISTRICT COURT, CLYDE.

Friday, September 4. (Before Ills Honor Judge Gray.) Feraud (appellant) v. Holt (respondent). —ln this case His Honor Judge Gray sat on Friday last, in expectation of meeting the parties to the case, and if necessary, delivering his reserved judgment, or stating such points as he was disposed to reserve for the opinion of the Supreme Court. M r Feraud was absent from Clyde, owing to some mistake as to the time the Judge would be returning from Clyde. Mr Ho It was present. His Honor said he believed he would not bo called upon to proceed any further in the case. Before he left Clyde for Queenstown the two parties (Mr Feraud and Mr Holt) had called together upon him, and informed him that they had come to an agreement as to the matter in dispute, and that it would not be necessary for him (the Judge) to give any judgment in the case. He requested them, however, to meet him in Court on his return from Queenstown, and having by that time given the matter more consideration, to inform him what they wished him to do with the appeal. He presumed that the parties were of the same mind now that they were then, but Mr Holt only was present. As he was now sitting in public Court he had no objection to mention for the information of both parties, though only one was now present, some of the points that he would have been disposed to reserve His Honor then mentioned several points. Among them were the following : Did the proclamations which, in the language of the Goldfields’ Act withdrew Clyde for the purposes of sale withdraw it from the Goldfields, and for all purposes ; and, if so, had the Warden, or had be jurisdiction to forfeit a water-race which terminated in the town of Clyde, and the disuse, if at all, in Clyde, although the water was drawn from the Goldfields, and the race, through nearly all its course, ran through the Goldfields ? If not, was there jurisdiction to forfeit what lay within the Goldfields, and what was in truth the body and essence of the whole water-race ? He would bo disposed to ask too if forfeiture were decreed, what should be the form of his judgment ; and what rights it would confer upon the person who prosecuted the forfeiture ? The cases up to this time decided on forfeiture did not touch the forfeiture of water rights w-hich had the peculiarity of rights ranking first, second, third, and so forth to water from the same stream. It was by no means clear that the person who succeeded in obtaining a forfeiture of such a right acquired the right so forfeited ; or got anymore than a right to fall in last, in possibly a long line of rights ranking upon the same stream. His Honor said he did not feel quite confident that the Supreme Court would answer these questions. His Honor alluded to several other questions, and finally allowed matters to remain in statu quo until he would return to the district on his next circuit, still holding his judgment reserved.