THE POLICE COURT AND THE 'DAIRY TIMES.'

Evening Star, Issue 3991, 9 December 1875, Page 2

THE POLICE COURT AND THE 'DAIRY TIMES.'

During this morning’s sitting of the City Po.ice Court, Mr D. S. Fish, jun., J.P., who, with Mr Mollison, J.P., occupied the Bench, said his attention had been drawn to two paragraphs in yesterday’s ‘ Daily Times ’ that were, in his opinion, calculated to bring that Court into contempt with the general public. It w.is usually considered ultra vires for a Court to take any notice of newspaper paragraphs, but these were so calculated to imbue people with the idea that justice was not fairly dispensed in that Court, that be felt it his duty to make some remarks on the matter. The first paragraph referred to the case of John M‘Leary, and he (Mr Fish) said the whole of it was a tissue of mis-statements —except the statement that accused’s wife had to take shelter in a neighbor’s house there was not one that was correct, and not a tittle of evidence was given in Court as to them. Dow the ferdle imagination of tie gentleman who penned the paragraph had discovered these it was hard to know. As to the lightness of the fine, the Uench fined M'Leary 40s for the offence he was charged with ('iruukeuness and disorderly conduct), the utmost penalty for which was L 5, or fourteen days, The other paragraph

professed to call attention to a discrepancy between judgments deli veredby Messrs M'Clashan and Birch, when on the Bench, and those given by himself (Mr Fish) and Mr Molliaon, and the cases cited wee the fining of William Link, 40.5, by the former J.P.'s, and the fining of the Kennedys, L 5, by the latter. The public were by this paragraph led to believe that the two oases were similar, whereas the first case was that of a sailor, unknown to the police, who was out on a drunken " spree,” and the fine could not be considered anything but perfectly just and fair On the other hand, the Kennedys had previously been before the Bench, when he (Mr Fish) had presided, charged with keeping a house in which prosti tutes assembled, and they were only let off on account of the husb&nd producing certificates of good service in the army. The Bench took that lenient view of the case, but gave than a strong caution as to their future behavior. Now they are brought up again charged with using obscene language (and he must say that it was of the most disgusting character that he had heard for some time, and throughout considerable experience on the Bench', and at the some time the police gave them the worst possible character. There could therefore be no other opinion but that the fine of L 5 was quite proper, and that there was no disparity between the fine of 40s and that of 1,5. His object in making these remarks was to state that if the Press made a practice of inserting paragraphs of this description, without the slightest inquiry being made as to their truth, the result would be a serious injury to the Court, to the administration of justice in the Court, and a mistaken idea in the public mind as to the manner in which justice was ihere dispensed. It was highly probable that the person who had written these paragraphs had not known what he was writing about, but it was a matter of regret that the supervision of the newspaper was of so weak a nature as to allow the insertion of paragraphs of this description, calculated to injure the administration of justice in the Court.