SUPREME COURT.

Evening Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2211, 8 June 1870, Page 2

SUPREME COURT.

Tins Dat, (Before Mr Justice Chapman.) His Honor took his seat on the bench at ten o’clock, and delivered the following charge to the Grand Jury, of which Mr 11. Gillies was chosen foreman : niAKGK, Mr Foreman and Gentlemen of the Grand Jury, before I enter upon the formal part of my charge permit me to express my satisfaction at again meeting you, and I trust that during the interval of my absence you and your families have enjoyed health and happiness. I am happy now to be able to congratulate you on the small amount of crime in this province. I find at the List sitting of the Court the number of prisoners was below the average ; now there are only nine on trial—all for offences against property, and none against the person, while live or six years ago the number of prisoners amounted to a great many more —I think on one or two occasions the number exceeded thirty. But the number has been gradually decreasing ; three years ago the number amounted to fourteen and fifteen up to seventeen and eighteen; now and then it was reduced to numbers varying from nine to twelve. Let me remind you that that is in the face of a considerable increase in the population of the province during 18G3 and 18154. I name that period because at that time the population of the province had become reduced from what it was during the West Coast goldfields rush. Since then it has been steadily increasing. It is difficult to trace out the cause of this decrease of crime. I believe the principal cause is that the evil disposed portion of the population has found it best to move to other localities; a great number have been convicted during the last five or six years, and the rest have been warned off. I recollect when I first sat as judge in this Colony, twenty years ago, remarking on the small amount of crime amongst the permanent settlers of the Colony. 1 make the same remark hero. If tve take the farming population, there are very seldom any serious crimes charged against them, and again, if wo take the mining population, there is seldom much crime. Most of the miners here como from other colonics. I have not been much amongst them here, but in Victoria I had every opportunity of judging, for in my professional occupation I was constantly meeting them at Ballarat and other places, as I was engaged a considerable time in cases arising out of mining contracts and disputes. I ever found them industrious and energetic to an extraordinary degree, persevering .if ten against hope, and among them was an almost total absence of crime. I believe the same to he the ease here. Occasionally we have persons'from mining districts charged with crime who call themselves miners—but they arc not miners, excepting in very rare instances. I believe in the majority of cases the?only mining process they enter into is, to use an expression well known amongst diggers, fossicking for gold in the teats of the true miners. Wc must not judge them to be samples of the mining population. Now what means have contributed to this diminution of tfie cilpfinal classes in this province. It is owing in great measure to the vigilance of the police, and I am happy to say they arc aided by public support and by public opinion. 1 hardly know in any part of the colony of a better police than we have here. But I am fully aware that in most of our colonies the Governments have been fully impressed with the necessity of organising a goo I police, and I must say that the police forces in the various colonies are all respectable and good, hut there is no colony which surpasses this; I do not say they do not equal, but they do not surpass this province ip the excellence and vigilance of their police. Further, it -is in a great measure the good sense of the people which supports the p lice in all lawful acts. We have no institution under Government either independent or dependent on the state of the colony, that can be perfectly efficient without being supported by the good sense of tho people. There is one circumstance, which I think calls for short observation from me, because it is pregnant with good results for the future. 1 allude to the very general and healthy slate ot opinion in this I province in regard to the education of the people—the education of tho youth. It seepis to me a very praiseworthy aoe on the part of the Provincial Legislature that it devotes a large portion of its attention, aud

I believe it is still doing so, to the perfecting and extending of the educational institutions of the colony. But, gentlemen, the observations I have made regarding public support to the police is still more applicable to the questiuh before the Legislature. The legislature can never be too much in advance of public opinion. It is the duty of the legislatur' to be in advance as much as possible of public opinion, and a long experience justilics mein saying that unless supported by public opinion it can never be long much in advance. Now, I find generally from some conversations I have Lad with the inhabitants of this city, and also from both leading articles and correspondence in the public papers, that the "whole of the population is animated with a strong desire to ini. rove the educational institutions of the country—in other words public opinion is supporting the action of the Legislature. That I take to be a healthy condition of public mind. Now, why do I allude to education on this occosion ? ft is this, that 1 firmly believe that in proportion as the population is educated, in the inverse proportion sha’d wc have crime. Thus while education improves crime decreases. If we look over the returns in Mngland we shall find that a large number of the criminal population can neither read nor write, some even do not write, and others read and write imperfectly, qhc low state of education is distinctly the cause of a large criminal population. Of course wc have great crimes committed by persons of higher degree; we have fraudulent bankers and frauduleit tradesmen, and we have very great fraud committed in England by persons of comparatively good education. These are exceptions to the general rule. I speak here of crime generally; I am not singling out particular cases. I have authority for saying that the most crime is committed by persons of a low state of education. As v e elevate the public mind by education, we shall find, I believe, that crime will be proportionally diminished. His Honor then proceeded to comment ou the cases set dov n for trial. The Grand Jury were dismissed to their room, and shortly returned a number of true bills. HE GEORGE HAGGERTY. It will bo remembered that two sessions ago Haggerty was charged wfth having committed an indecent assault on his daughter and with attempting to commit suicide, He was acquitted on the first charge, and on the second bound over for 12 months in his own surety of LTOO, and another surety of the same amount. That surety he had not been able to obtain; and he had been in gaol ever since in consequence. Mr Barton now applied that he might be admitted to bail on his recognizance. The Grown Prosecutor offered no objection and the application was granted. ARSON, John Kane was charged with committing this offence at Balclntha. Mr Barton defended. The facts of the case as stated are these The prisoner is indicted for having set fire to a dwelling-house at Balclntha, belonging to one John Maher. It would appear from the evidence that the prosecutor was living with the wife of the prisoner in a state of adultery, she having home a child to him during tho prisoner’s absence from the Colony. Ou his return, and some months before the date of the alleged arson, he went to live at a house situated within a short distance—thirty yards—of the house of the prosecutor, where his wife and children were then living- On the 17th April last, prisoner went to the prosecutor's house, and after having some conversation with his wife, went away to his own house. He had not gone a couple of seconds when the prosecutor heard a rustling in the thatch of the house, and saw prisoner standing about twelve paces away from the house. The thatch was then on fire. A daughter of the prisoner, who was stdl nearer the fire, saw him take a handful of straw out of a dog’s house, and go with it towards his house. Previous to that he told his wife he would burn the house down, with her in it; and it was in consequence of that threat that she told her daughter to watch Irm. After the fire was discovered, his wife asked prisoner if he set it on fire, and he replied, “Yes.” The house was burned to the ground. The witnesses examined were Maher, prisoner’s daughter—a child about eleven years of age—ami the arresting constable. The witness Maher, in answer te Mr Barton, said he first went to work for prisoner’s wife, who owned the house and laud they lived in, untd prisoner’s return. Wpeu he came back, she and her children went to live with him at his house. He didn’t think it wrong to live with another man’s wife in one scire—when her husband left her for two years with a big family. (Laughter.) He thought more of his oath than living with a man’s yyifo. (Renewed laughter.) When hj» t A UvQ lYiOlb- i: nan to pay for and he paid pretty dear fur it. Prisoner’s wife told him ou his return she wouldn’t live with him, but he made no reply. On the Sunday, prisoner told his wife he’d cut her hair, and she said she wouldn’t do such a mean thing. (Laughter.) She cut his hair. (Renewed laughter.) The jury returned a verdict of not guilty. John Crcagh pleaded guilty to two of the charges preferred against him. The grand jury returned true bills in all the eases except that of James Grafton, for forgery and uttering at Port Oh a briers. Mr Gillies read the following presentment : “ On behalf of the Grand Jury, I am requested to congratulate your Honor on your return to Otago, and to express their hope that yon may long continue to preside over this Court and that of the neighboring Province of Southland. “It was with much pleasure that we listened to your remarks on tho gradual decrease of crime. This is the more remarkable as trade has never been known to be ip a, more depressed condition than at present. “ The lightness of the calendar will have struck you 'more forcibly than it has impressed itself on our minds, for you haviiK' been some time absent, have now opportunity of comparing the present state of the Province with what it was before you left. Influenced by the evory-day events which have conduced to this social change, we quite coincide in your view that this alteration for the better has been the joint effect of the vigilance of the police, and the oare given to education, “ Wo trust that, year by year, crime will decrease in proportion, to the increase of population, and that the development of the educational system of the Province will, in tfle er.urse of a few generations, place it in the highest rank—intellectual and moral—among the nations of the earth, “ We thank you for the interest you have

kindly expressed in our domestic relations and trust that yourself and lady will long enjoy uninterrupted health and happiness amongst us. “ liojJKRT Gillum, “ Foreman, Grand Jurv. “June Sth, 1870.” His Honor thanked the Grand Jury, and discharged them.