CITY POLICE COURT.

Evening Star, Issue 3886, 7 August 1875, Page 2

CITY POLICE COURT.

Saturday, August 7,

(Before H, S. and Mereer, Esq.’s, Drunkenness -Wm Scariett, an immigrant by the James Nicol Fleming, charged with being drunk at the Immigration Barracks, Gaversh&m, was dismissed with a caution Wife Desertion. -Edward Beasley was charged on warrant with deserting his wift and two children at Christchurch, leaving them without proper means of support.—The accused was remanded till Monday. i vc « 0F the Peace.— Ellen Power, alias Burke, charged with conducting herself in a manner calculated to provoke a breach of the peace, was'fined 20s, or, in default, forty-eight hoars imprisonment. Breacb op the Railway Ordinance.Matthewson v. Sheddon.-This was an information for. trespass on the Port Chalmers Railway. Ihe case was beard on Monday last. Mr e M a - nU s a #‘ ?r j of ] , aw P° ints were by Mr Mmr,, defendant a solicitor, and judgment wpr« Ved tlll la y> when the objections were overruled by the Bench. To-day a re-hoarmg was applied for on the ground that it had been discovered the Court Sir ]^ ne «V ctl( ? n ' a question of title being M Stout appeared for complainant; Messrs Barton and Muir for defendant. The a test . Gn ®. brought by the railway authorities against a contractor under a Road Board for trespassing on the Port Chalmers way by making a road inside the railway fences, and crossing the line with earth, &c. Mr Barton now objected that the Crown had no title to the line, the action of the promoters and the Superintendent being unauthorised : tne Railway Compulsory Lands Taking Ordinance being ultra vires, and the various R iilay j- - Cl . not sufficiently vesting the line and its adjoining lands ia the Crown. He further submitted that actions dealing with land should be a d Supreme Court. What the General Assembly had strangely enough, by the Validation Act, endeavored to do was to confer, contrary to daw, on the Provincial Council the right to legislate for land. The only way in which this right could be legally obtained was by means of Her Majesty’s Home Parliament. A kindred question was being argued in Wellington at the present time, the Opposition contending that the General Assembly had no power to abolish Provincialism. The other side, however, contended that such power was conferred on them by au Act ot the Parliament of England, to enable the General Assembly to abolish any particular Province and constitute new districts. The late Attorney-General, now the Chief Justice, had given it as his opinion if the Assembly could abolish one Province they could abolish all. Without this, power from the Home Parliament they could no more abolish the Provinces than tho Parliament of England itself. He contended that the General Assembly could in no degree enable Provincial Councils to pass an Act of this kind.—The information was dismissed on the question of title. *