The Globe. SATURDAY, JANUARY 16, 1875.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 189, 16 January 1875, Page 2

The Globe. SATURDAY, JANUARY 16, 1875.

In the report of the cases heard at the R.M. Court, Christchurch, which appears in our columns of Thursday last, there is one to which we wish to call special attention, A man named Edward Amyes was summoned for being the owner of an unregistered dog. The defendant at once admitted the charge, but he stated, and there is no reason to disbelieve his statement, that the dog had been duly registered in Otago, in which province defendant had been living. The defendant had only been a resident in Canterbury for some few months. It also appears that the year for which a dog is registered in the Southern Province commences in March, while here the registration takes effect from the Ist of January. The Resident Magistrate stated that the case appeared to him to be a very hard one, but that he had no option in the matter, as the defendant admitted that the dog was not registered in this province, and consequently he was compelled to inflict a fine of 20s. We have no doubt that the R. M. would have been glad if he could have seen his way to have discharged the defendant, but the law was of course imperative, and the magistrate was thus obliged to inflict what can only be called a most unjust fine. The administrator of the law is of course in no way blameable in such a case as this, but in the name of all that is just, surely the law itself stands in great need of alteration ; we have before alluded to the persons on whom this registration of dogs presses most heavily. The class in question is of course that of the drovers of sheep and cattle, who are constantly crossing the borders of the different provinces. Many of them do not register their dogs at all, as if they register in one province, they have no security that they will not be summoned the moment they cross into the next, and therefore they run the risk of a fine and save their registration fees. It seems the height of absurdity that the payment of one fee for a dog should not be sufficient for, at least, one island of New Zealand, and to imagine that persons travelling with dogs from one end of the island to the other should, without being compelled, pay a fee in each province they pass through, is to regard them as having a greater idea the vigilance of the officials than these gentlemen probably deserve. Still the case we have quoted shows that the officials do come down on unfortunate offenders occasionally, and then the law is vindicated, by the infliction of a fine which no reasonable person in the country'considers just, but which the dispenser of justice is, perforce, bound to inflict.