A TALE OF AN AUCKLAND JURY.

Kumara Times, Issue 609, 10 September 1878, Page 2

A TALE OF AN AUCKLAND JURY.

Curious stories have been told before this respecting the doings of Auckland juries, but the following, which we find in an Adelaide paper, is novel:— " You may not believe it, gentlemen, but 'pon my boul it's a fact, I've tossed up for a man's life, and won !"

The speaker was a quince-face stranger, sitting in the parlour of friend Morton's Southern Cross hostelrie. The audience comprised some of the living coruscation of Adelaide, and your humt.le servant j ever, as usual, on the look-out for anything good enough to suit his readers.

" Look here," said the genial host, with an emphatic flourish rof his right arm, "I don't know you, mate, bit you're a most amusing cuss. Tell you what it is; give, us the ; yarn of'that .t»-s n|i En life, and I'll'give the festiv* Rue-dorer for the company." With the Jn-ief reply, " You're on,"

the quince-faced stranger emptied his glass of May's premier bottling in livel* anticipation of the* "fiz ? ' to come; pulled up bis pair of Dillon's champion Wellingtons ; passed his hand through the head of hair so recently decorated at Glenelg by Rnsh, and plunged at once into the following narrative, which he carried out relentlessly to the bitter end :

"Gentlemen, I was pursuing the even tenoiir of my wayi—(< Hard up for two fivers that tenermeans,' iuterjected host Robert)-—-when I found myself in Auckland, carrying on. the peaceful avocation of aland agent, including the lucrative business v of. supplying the rebel Maoris with -leaden sa«h weights, wax matches, and eyelet; holes."

" Whaf was that for V demanded one of the company. .>•. ;■' '" i •:' *' Well, you see; ,? was&e calm reply, "gunpowder, bullets ami percussion caps were contraband of war at the time; and I had no desire for a neckstretcher at the hands of Sir Duncan Cameron. It was . before. Rangariri, gentlemen. So T instructed the M.ioris how to make rifle bullets out of sash weights, and von would sWroely believe how admirably the tops of %v;>* matches cut off and inserted into .eyelets, answered the purpose qi 'percussion caps But to return to my subject. One day a constable paid me visit,, with a summons for the jury'.'., I went,;saw, and got run into ttiebox with 1 eleven others en pannelled to try two Maoris, Hori Taka and Matin,' for rubbing out a settler's family up the Waikato. The main evidence was that of the cnly survivor, ,a ; boy who been tomahawked,and left for who distinctly swore to the two men in the dock as being -the slaughterers of his relatives. The Judge-i(old 'Sir "George Arney) charged us the niggers, and we retited .to .cofisider our verdict. Now, I was doing a big,business with the ti^tlves'Wt^t' ; 'time; and it wouldn't'bave done for me id be one of a dozen that scragged'Wo promising specimens ; of ihe raM ' Five others from business reasons held''the Mime view; but the including the foreman, were dead on for a conviction. We wrangled,' smoked, sang songs, and tried otfeef wayii to pass away the time; but there we were at 5 o'clock, six 6f one andI*'half 1 *'half a doz:n.of the other. At last the judge sent in to say that- if we were not agrwd by I.Q o'clock, we. must be locked up all'nigh 4 1. That fixed our foreman's flint. ,He was a master stonemason,j, had the. epntra;ct:fo r r'some new building under way, and about fifty men-working foriihera. ; , ';f- ---*? Look here, boys," ho said, " it's plain we can't agree ; we're too divided for that. Now, I tell yon'wliat, it is. If I'm locked, up tomightfc—(it was on a SHturday)r-"there'll" be the divil to pay with my men. ,Ll'll loose a lot of money. Tell you;what we^lido. We'll toss for it, Guilty pi*. Not Guilty; and I'll stand a supper afterwards round at the Freemason's." • ] '-% \& ■• ?-

Suiting the action to the word, be cut off a button from his flannel jackefc It wna one of those big mother-o'-pearl buttons, common on such articlesj i>lkbk on one side, white on the other.

Selecting hie as the chanipio&of the " not, guilty" crowd—- the forepart was' straight for hanging ' em^-b.e.con-tinued— ■-• ■- ',./.-' "Now then, we're alla|re<&bk Black, the niggers goes )lobse; they swings. Up it goes." ■'- - -• *" i I looked at the button, to see all fairi ; - Up went the', •said button, and came' down Blackr. 1 : We.went'into Courts '** -.y\ " Gentlemen of the Jury, are you all agreed upon your verdict?" says old O'Brien, thefudge's.Associate. ;. v- ." We isj" says th« foreman. . " How say you, gentlemen, of the , Jury, do you find-; the: prisoners at the '■ bar guilty, or not guilty'?' ask&i the deputy beak... « Not gnilty." . They were turned loose| and rubbed noses outside with their mate?. Next day I saw them Belling : peßches about the streets. ■. .' * ' " But were they guilty ¥' asked one ~ v of company.- . "Well, it so tnrned out that they were not, replied the' quince-faced y stranger. " Three days afterwards the ' - real culprits wei*e taken with-a mob of others at King's Redoubt, ajid :: a swag- \{ man who had been hiding in'the bush ~ v . while the tpmakawking on the settler's, family was going on, came forward, and identified, them, by a peculiar pattern '•'.. tattoed on their arms—the mark of the Ngnrnawahia chiefs." ' "What a fortunate interposition of V Providence in fsivour of tKe innocent V' ," exclain\ed the only righteous one in our • .midst.;., ./". . ' I (•.■■ - v v' ; ' - ''""' ' : You bet .!? exciairtipd. ttie^lqnince-,.-.? faced stranger, quietly." "I ha'dJthe'T handling of that button just before ifc"J was shied up. I liadalso some liquid •-*- lamp-blsck.; in, ')my H coati. Shouldn't woiuler if the whitelsideof ] '- the button got a bit., smutted itt-tb.e»^

■± confusibrf? les,' mate, your moral's very proper and pretty. ..Morton produced the champagtie.— "Adelaide Lantern,