LATEST TELEGRAMS.

Kumara Times, Issue 488, 20 April 1878, Page 2

LATEST TELEGRAMS.

[press agency. I

Timaru, April 18. A man named William S<>meis, employed as haker, at Pleasant' Point, was bm\.t to death last nighfi. He f-et a batch of bread at 7 p.m., and went t'> bed. The bakery, a detached build iug was found on fire, and burnt to the ground. The charred remain* of Somers were found but no clue to the cause of the tire.

Wellington, April 18. i The H«>u. J. Bui lance having received | the application ot Mr Crawford, U. VI , I and Mr Baker, Clerk of Court, for an inquiry into th; alle-ations made by Mr Barton against the officials of the Resident M rate's 0;mit, comnMideated with Mi- Ba> ton <>n the matter. In reply, Mr Burton savs. " In making these charges I abstained from pointing ont certain individuals, lest, I nii_dit hereifter be forced iit-. the position of defending my«elf before Judges whom i I have charged with f...5t.-ring in the superior (Joint ,t state «,f tilings .if which [ complain. I remember too well \ the Bridges scandal, and how certain powerful gentlemen dared Mr Bridges

to the proof, and in the same breath threatened him with prosecution if he opened his mouth. I note also that when Mr Jones boldly persisted in charging the Attorney-General with corruption, and when Parliament, at the expense of the tax payers, directed the prosecution to clear the AttorneyGeneral's character, Judge Williams, with the assistance of Judge Johnston, contrived to exclude all truth of the proof of Mr Jones's charges, and thus endeavoured to reduce the jury to the necessity of finding Jones guilty. I also note that this judicial juggle was perpetrated under cover of a repealed English statute only capable of being treated as law in New Zealand in case the Jndg« should consider it " applicable to the circumstauces of the colony." Mr Barton then goes on to say, " George Jones only escaped the destruction intended for him, because the jury drawn from the middle class, was bold enough to fling to the winds the direction of the Judges, and acquitted Jones of libel." With these beacons before me I cannot but believe that the intention of Mr Crawford and MiBaker was not so much to vindicate the KM. as to secure the opportunity of silencing me by civil or criminal proceedings. In Dnnediti, in 1866, I had an unfortunate experience of a trial formalicious prosecution before Mr Justice Richmond and an ' assorted jurv,' and have no desire to repeat it. In Wellington a similar trial before the same Judge and an'assorted jury' picked from the list 90 (dead and alive) of the gentlemen whose interest it is to keep things as they are. I beg therefore to decline to place myself in the position of a private prosecutor."