THE REICHELT PROSE JUTION.
( To the Editor.) Sin, —Allow me through your columns to to complain publicly of the misreportiug and misrepresentation of this case by the Daily Times newspaper. In yesterday’s paper the conductors of that journal thought proper to set out a state-
j . 'j meht'madb by Detective Farrell in a momeifit’bf ‘irritation, to the effect that a clerk of imihe had been tampering with the Insu* aaijco Company’s witnesses. That statement was, in fact, made by Farrell, and therefore I cannot complain ot its being incorrect, but seeing that both the £eucb and others in Court at the time gave Detective Farrell to understand that he ought not to have made the statement, and that I stated that I was not even retained at the time that Farrell alluded to having seen Mr Creagbrathia friend Howard’s house , (which was the alleged tampering), none of which circumstances were mentioned in the report. I complain of that publication as both wanton and malicious towards thyself, and unfair towards the accused. But although |I did not think what tyas published yesterday worthy of noticed I think that what this day appears could not he passed over without characterising it ; as it deserves to be characterised; and I Drought the matter under the notice of the Bench this morning at the sitting of . the Court, when unfortunately your reporter was nbt yet present to take a note of my remarks and those of the Bench. The report to which ! called attention ran as follows : - ~ .v - “ Thomas S. Mitchell,, the watchman at the Bell Tower, gave evidence similar to that which he gave at the inqupst. In answer to Mr Barton, he said that he never got a reward; from the insurance companies when he quickly discovered a fire. witness, though at times confused Mid perplexed under a hot fire of cross-questions, that came to quick that he seemed hardly able to’:apdrehcn l, much less answer them, cbul£ hot be shaken in his evidence. He occasionally made such appeals to the prisoherVcounefel as “ Hold on a bit'; you are bamboozling me there.” “The Hon. Dr. Buchanan said that the style of cross-examining paraded by Mr Barton was prejudicing his client’s,case in his (Dr Buchanan’s mind.. He hdpedtliat Mr Barton would, in the interest of his client, not conduct himself in that way. If it were necessary to use the Jortiter in re it should be tempo ed with the suaviter In modo. , ~ “ Mr Barton said that he should, take good care to endeavor to get their' Worships to take a favorable view ol 'his client’a case.
“MrSmith considered Mr Barton’s tre(s--of the witness as most insulting. Once and for all he would protest against the treatment to which the prisoner’s counsel had subjected this and other witnesses. There was no occasion to treat him as a hostile witness, to subject him to badgering and browbeating, and taunt him or charge him with saying what was false,” Now, sir, so far from its being true that the witness Mitchell “ could not he shaken in his evidence,” it is the fact that the Bench itself referred to very numerous discrepancies between the witness’s evidence and that of other respectable witnesses, and read the conflicting statements aloud. And his Wor? ship the Mayor alluded at the close of the witness’s statement to the unsatisfactory manner of his giving his evidence in answer to himself (the Mayor) as well as to me. Again, sir, Dr Buchanan did not say that my “style of cross-examination was preju? dicing ray client’s case in his mind.” If he were capable of being so prejudiced, he ought not to sit on that or any other bench of a court of justice ; and I believe that Dr Buchanan would be incapable of any such gross unjudicial conduct. When I brought the matter before the Court this morning, the Bench itse'f maide several remarks about the report, which I do not here wish to repeat lest I should lie open to some further and even more mischievous mis-statements in the Daily Tim 8 than those to which I have hitherto been subjected. The conductors of the Otago Daily Times will, I hope, in future abstain from making their reporting columns —which in all respectable journals are kept sacred from misrepresentation of political foes—the vehicle of slanders and false statements.
I am, &c,, Geoi.ob Elliott Barton. June 29. P.S.—I wish to add that I haye no desire to blame the reporter, or to fasten upon him the blame.—G.E.B.
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Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2610, 29 June 1871, Page 2
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755THE REICHELT PROSE JUTION. Evening Star, Volume IX, Issue 2610, 29 June 1871, Page 2
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