A MINER'S GRIEVANCE.

Grey River Argus, Volume XII, Issue 1049, 6 December 1871, Page 2

A MINER'S GRIEVANCE.

[to the editor.]

Sir — I wish to lay before the public, through the medium of your paper, a public grievance, or one that any person is liable to suffer from the same as I have done, and have no way of getting redress. I have beeu victimised to the tune of about LI 4s, by whom I will leave it to your readers to jndge, and if any of them can tell me how I could have done any better, or how they themselv.es would act •if placed in the same position to-morrow, then I think they know more, and' can mana je our R. M. better, than all the lawyers in town. The facts of the case are these:— On Saturday last, the bailiff came to my house when I was at dinner, and sat down and said he had a summons for me," and gave it to me. As soon as I saw it 1 said to him that it was not for me, that I was not in debt to Dickie of Cobden for L 2 14s, nor to any one else in the Colonies, and that my name was not what was on the summons, and that he had better take it back and serve it on the man it was issued for. I said I did not see the reason he had to come to serve a summons on me that was for another man. " Well," he said,. "thii is.the only Star claim on the South Beach, and you are the only one of the name in the claim, and if every person that I serve with a summons was to say take it back and serve it on some one else, my name is not so and so, I should never serve any, and the law would be evaded and the ends of justice defeated." He also . said he would leave the summons, and- that I had better appear to it, or Dickie would get judgment by default, and very likely there would be a distress warrant issued and that I would be put to the same expense, loss of time, and trouble, then as now ; and he said if I went to Court and proved that I was not the man, I would get my expenses. I took his advice and went to Court, but when Dickie admitted that I was not the man, the Magistrate would not allow me my expenses. I wished to have asked him what 1 ought to have done under the circumstances, and to have explained the thing to him, but he would not -hear me. Now, sir, -I had to pnt a man 6h my place at 15s for the day, and there is 8s charged on the summons for mileage, and it cost me more ; and 1 am to suffer that loss for | no dishonesty or fault on my part. And if the same thing was to occur to-morrow, I should not know what to do, because I saw yesterday, in the Cobden Court, people getting judgment against others that had neglected to attend to their summonses ; and' the plaintiffs were never asked whether they knew that the summonses had been served on the right parties or not. Who knows but ,tbss some of them were served on the .wrong parties, the same as 'myself." The magistrate would issue distress warrants if they were applied for, and the bailiff would seize" because they did not attend to prove that they were not the men who owed the debt; and if they, had attended, . they would have been served the same as myself, and perhaps, seen the plaintiff the same as I saw ; Dickie— run away, from the Court laughing, probably thinking to himself he could repeat the dose with impunity as often as he liked, so long as the law was administered in that mauner. lam, &c, .ALOVKR OF JUSTIOE. South Beachj Deo. 5, 1871.