HOTELKKEEPERS AS JURORS.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1091, 27 April 1883, Page 3

HOTELKKEEPERS AS JURORS.

A highly-amusing dialogue took place at the Supremo Court, Wellington, between Judge Richmond and the prisoner at the Bar—a man named Price—indicted for fal.-o pretences. Prior to the empanelling of the jury the prisoner was informed in the usual manner that ho had the privilege of “ challenging” any juror whose name might bo called. Prisoner : I heg your pardon, your Honor, hut can I challenge hotelkeepers I His Honor : Certainly. You have twelve challenges, and you can challenge hotelkeepers if you like. Nobody will ask yon why you challenge them. Prisoner : How am 1 to know they are hotelkeepers ? His Honor: You ought to he able to know hotelkeepers as well as 1 do. You don't mean to say, though, that the whole race of hotelkeepers are hostile to you ? Prisoner : Yea, £ do. lam a Good Templar, and they are bound to have a “ down” on me. —(Loud laughter.) His Honor : Oh, you are a Good Templar, ate you? (Renewed laughter.) Well, you must judge for yourself as to who is an hotelkeeper and »"ho is not. After this conversation, which afforded great amusement to those in Court, the empannelling of ihejjury was duly proceeded with, aud, strange to say, the prisoner’s first “ challenge” was not an hotelkeeper, but a gentleman whose total abstinence principles are well known. Shortly afterwards another gentlemen was on the point of taking her seat in the jury box, when something in his appearance evidently suggested a resemblance to a Boniface, and ha promptly met with the inquiry on the part of the prisoner : “ Are you an hotelkeeper?” The gentleman in question laughingly shook his head in denial of the soft impeachment. “Oh, yes, you are,” he exclaimed with a knowing nod ; “ you had better standdown.” The challenged juror stood down accordingly amid great laughter.