HON. MR PHARAZYN’S DEFENCE.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1031, 20 January 1882, Page 3

HON. MR PHARAZYN’S DEFENCE.

At the Wellington Supreme Court lately the Hon Mr Pharazyn made the following speech to the jury when on his trial on the charge of plural voting The prisoner addressedthe jury. It was a singular circumstance, he said, that only on the previous day lie met Mr Hutchison, the late Mayor of the city, and that gentleman, in the course ola-conversation, had asked him if he was guilty or not. He had replied, “ Certainly not,” and to this Mr Mr Hutchison, who was a person of inlluenee, who might possibly affect the minds of jurors, said, “You know you are—you voted twice. This expression was sufficient to have raised the ire of a young man, but he let this pass. He {prisoner) was a voter for Thorudou, Te Aro and South Wellington, and the fact of his innocence was established by his having failed to record his vote in cither of the two latter-mentioned constituencies. Having recorded his vote at Thorndou he, as innocently as a lamb, made his way towards To Aro, intending to vote for Mr-Johnston. So absorbed was he at the time that he entered. that his eye was unacquainted with what the brain saw Kis sole purpose in going to Te Aro was to vote for M r Johnston. Ho was perfectly assured that Levin would beat his opponent by four to one, and therefore the result of the election did not trouble him in the least. Ho did not at the time imagine that the return of Johnston was so secure, and therefore his anxiety. He assured the jury that he never for an instant thought he was voting twice for Mr Levin. A carriage had been sent to bis house early in the day for him to come and record his vote for Mr Johnson, and if he hail been at home at the time the mistake would not have occurred. He had no criminal intention of voting as ho had done, and, as the law provided that a criminal intent must bo proved, he contended that he was not guilty. If a man hold a loaded revolver in his hand and it was innocently discharged, the person could not be deemed guilty of murder.

His Honor : Xo, but ho might be tried for manslaughter. Prisoner continued: Directly he ascertained that he had made a mistake he wrote to the roturning-otliner: but unfortunately the Legislature made no provision for mistakes—it merely provided that mistakes

should be punished with two yea; s’ impri sonment

His Honor: You are wrong, Mr Pliarason. The section says “ any period not exceeding two years imprisonment.” Prisoner; Ah, yes. Weil, that docs make a difference. (Laughter.) It was a great pity that important statutes were pushed through late in the session, when it was too late to discover the likelihood of any wrung being perpetrated. However, ho trusted that next session the Act would bo reformed. In conclusion, if the jury gave a verdict against him he was perfectly prepared to accept the consequences.

A GREATLY-INJURED PRINTER. tVill the subscribers to the Dnnstan Times kindly read, mark, learn, inwardly digest, and act upon the following hint:—“ Strange and incomprehensible as it will appear to some folk, wo must state, [solemnly and without any sort of reservation, that the proprietor of this paper has to pay for both labor and material. We know it will startle quite a heap of people to bo assured, positinely, that ho doesn’t ‘live on suction,’and a crowd of delinquent patrons (?) will be dumbfounded to learn that he is really not a bloated capitalist, miming a newspaper as a pleasant plan to keep him from being run into Bedlam from sheer inanition and ennuiWe place these simple facts before our kind, hut unthinking, customers—who owe the ‘boss’ of this journal several hundreds of pounds of well-earned money—in order to disabuse them of ideas which are becoming chronic, and might eventually take such a turn that they would send accounts to this olllec for work and labour done in taking in the paper or writing out their advertisements No! until the Millennium, or the Commune, steals upon ns, the injured man whose name appears in the imprint further on, will have to ‘ cash up ’ for wages, material, ‘ tucker ’ taxes, and a few other trifles, and ho hopes his friends will accept the information and the hint, ami cash up likewise. Ami that promptly, for ho is threatened with dislocation of the jaw from frequent lingual manipulation of postage stamps to slick ou his debtors bills. ‘Gome ou, Macduff,’ etc." —St. Arnaud Times.