Page 2 Advertisements Column 3

Evening Star, Issue 3314, 3 October 1873, Page 2

It is rumored in Victorian legal circles that the Attorney-General declined to take any part in the original prosecution of Mount and Morris, in consequence of his personal acquaintance with the family of the former. The management of the case was then handed over to Messrs Travers Anderson and O’Loghlen, but contrary to the suggestion made to them, the indictment was framed under the 12 and 13 Vic., cap. 9(5, instead of under the Merchant Shipping Amendment Act, 30 and 31 Vic., cap. 134, sec. 11. The Australasian's late article on the case, says the result is due to the fault of those whose duty it is to administer justice by course of law, but who, by sheer bungling, have allowed law and justice to become antagonistic, The duty of the Executive in carrying out the sentence imposed on these men was clear and simple. It presented alternative, either to send them to England to undergo punishment, or to allow the Secretary of State to appoint a place where they might undergo it here. If we ask why this obvious course was not adopted, we find no reason but the utterly contemptible one that it was considered beneath the dignity of the Victorian Government either to send the prisoners Home for punishment, or to allow the Secretary of State to assign their place of detention here. It was not a regard for public opinion, it was simply apprehension of what Mr Higinbotham would say, that led the Government to imagine, / and to be guided by such an objection as this, (