CORRESPONDENCE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume V, Issue 308, 13 October 1855, Page 6

CORRESPONDENCE.

To the Editor of the Lyttelton Times. Sir, —Was it not for your publication I know not how we should be able to convey our individual sentiments to the public, indeed we should be under the lock and' key of officialism, but fortunately we are neither compelled to be Old Navvies nor Advocates of Shamways (Tramways). I am gratified, however, to find that the freedom of your journal is every day becoming more universally acknowledged. At this present moment I merely -wish to say a word with reference to your remark upon my letter of the 3rd instant, upon referring to which I find it is more semiperspicuous than it might have been. What I simply wished to Ray, and what I thought I had said, was that by the 11th and 12th Yict. c. 43, the Justice or Justices, when acting judicially, must sit in open court, but that by the 11th and 12th Vict., c. 42 when acting ministerially, that although not bound in all cases to sit in open court that it was usual and certainly expedient so to do ; and if you refer to Dickinson's Guide to the Quarter Sessions (an authority which no one will dispute,) you will find, pa^e 12 it states as follows—- But considering the benefits which frequently arise from the communication of facts 'as they transpire and the jealousy with which private enquil nes are naturally regarded, the most expe nenced Magistrates refrain from exercising this discretionary power of exclusion except •when the necessity is clear," thereby cvi dencnig that the clause as cited by you was only to he used agreeably to the arguments adduced by me. If you r,fer to the clause' in question, you will fi.;d ,t end., thus: "if it appears &c. _ that is the discretionary power Mr. Dickinson a.mdes to. I mnst again t having regard to the practice of Metropolitan command ihe spirit of the age, that that divisionary power is evidently only used wuh the greatest care and even reluctance, and then only when absolutely and imperative^ necessary; and if our magistrate will pemstm clearing his court when any case

is called on of an indictable or supposed indictable nature, I will maintain it is in contravention of the whole spirit and meaning of the act and custom of the times. I was in practice ten years in England, and during that time the magistrates never objected to my being professionally present upon any preliminary enquiry, and only upon one or two occasions did I know of a private sitting. Without troubling myself to reply to " Malaprop's" stultiloqence, Believe me, } yourvour obedient servant, Etjphron. Lyttelton, Oct. 12th, 1855.