SUPREME COURT.

Evening Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2308, 29 September 1870, Page 2

SUPREME COURT.

IN BANCO. Tjns Day. (Before Mr Justice Chapman.) JIKCJNA V. WIIITK. The examination of witnesses for the Crown, wss continued tin's morning, and concluded a little after two o’clock this afternoon. The ease for the defence, as stated hy Mr Harris, was as follows Stripped of technicalities the matters of fact for the jury to consider were these —Did the defendant on a certain date purchase from the Crown a certain quantity of land in the Tomahawk district '! what quantity of land did he buy ? what quantity of land under that purchase was lie entitled to ? had he got more land under his Crown grant than he was entitled to under the application he had made ‘i If the jury accepted the plaintiffs view', they must come to the conclusion that the defendant was only entitled to Jo acres, while ho had had granted to him 40 acres 1 rood, comprised in four suburban sections. It had been brought out in evidence that four sections opposite White’s bind contained the last-mentioned acreage, yet it had not been disputed. it had been said that the action was raised by the Queen ; strictly perhaps it was so, but practically it was brought by the Provincial Government, the parties responsible for the map called the selection map, responsible for the plan upon which the Crown grant bad

been issued. By the plaintiffs it was alleged that when selecting this particular land, there was the road line in dispute shown on that map as the western boundary of the sections purchased by defendant. The witnesses however bad the greatest difiicnlty even with a magnifying glass, in tracing the sections upon it. -Mr Short’s memory was so perfect that lie was able, after a lapse of 12 years to state that the defendant selected from that particular map, although duplicates of it and other maps laid promiscuously about in the survey department at that i time. It would be 'for the jury to say how | far the’ were bound by such evidence. It 1 would he found upon a careful examination of the map that it was almost impossible to say avhetlicr or not a road iine was aapon it at any time. The jury were asked to upset a man’s title alter a Crown grant had been issued to him, and llm laud had been surveyed from maps I prepared by Covcrnment, because it was now found that it conveyed a road line described in another selection map twentyone years old, which it was scarcely creditable topproducc As men of business, would they like that the land they might ho'd might be affected by such an old tattered map. The facts on which defendant claimed the land he held were these :—ln 1858 he went to the Tomahawk district to select some land to purchase. He was shown over the land by a Mr Harrison, from whom he purchased some sections. On settling on the land he found he had settled on unsold Government land, instead of that purchased from Harrison, ami in consequence had to purchase the four sections he now held. These sections he selected from a map which had not been produced—in aT probability it was the duplicate referred to as having been lest. Mr Harrison and other witnesses would prove that the selection map had been altered since they selected hind in 1858. Harrison would prove that when he selected the map showed no road line beyond section 7, which adjoined section 9, White’s property. In corroboration it won't! be proved that when White found he had no road line to his section, he made an arrangenunt with Harrison to take a road through one ti the sections. This was done iu 18.5:2; but when he got his grant with a road line given, the arrangement was mutually cancelled. In 1860 Mr MTvcllar, Government Surveyor, went to the Tomahawk to make a road through the valley ; he discovered no trace of the road line in dispute. Defendant had all along maintained the settlers had no legal right to the road. When the Government after the issue of the grant, found there was no road line, they entered into repeated negotiations with defendent for one through his land. Tims-*, however, fell through. Counsel for the Crown had attempted to show that defendant had been exorbitant in his claim for compensa-tion-all lie asked was 1.50, the bare cost of fencing his land.

JOHNSTON V. M'MILLAN. It was iiitiinatecl that this case has been postponed until the 4th October. [Left sitting. ]