The Lyttelton Times.

Lyttelton Times, Volume V, Issue 313, 31 October 1855, Page 5

The Lyttelton Times.

Wednesday, Oct. 31. By the Spray we have received no later English intelligence. The Spray has brought down the mail of the English Maori, which arrival at Nelson with dates from England to tlie sth of July, not so late as the Cashmere's news by five days. We have received some late Nelson papers ; our file however, is broken, as it appears that a mail which has not yet reached Canterbury has been shipped at Nelson. From the papers that have reached us, we gather that Bishop Sehvyn is now at Nelson. At a Church Meeting held in that Province, his lordship said that " from the fact of his being a missionary Bishop, he was better enabled to visit all parts of his diocese. The vessel which was 'now his only home, enabled him to move with facility from place to place, and he hoped that his visits to Nelson would now be more frequent than they had hitherto been." Alluding to the state of affairs at Taranaki, the Nelson Examiner says — " But if the war excitement has subsided, another hs>s sprung up. It will be remembered that the Bishop paid a visit to Taranaki a few weeks ago, to use his influence with Katatore and his party to maintain peace, and that his lordship failed in his mission. On his return to Auckland, the Bishop addressed a pastoral letter to the members of the Episcopal Church in Taranaki, in which his lordship seeks to screen the turbulent natives, who are mostly in care of the Church mission, and threw the blame on tbe opposite party,whoareWesleyans, and on the Europeans. The settlers are told that ' they grudge to an industrious people (the natives) the possession of land which they have shown themselves willing and able to cultivate,' and are told that, they are guilty of ' the sin of covetousness.' Several correspondents of the Herald indignantly protest'agaiust these'eharges: not having seen his lordship's letter, we are not competent to express an opinion upon it ourselves, but from what we can gather of it from the comments it has excited, it seems to be an extraordinary production." The Judge was one day at Nelson, and the Examiner complains very justly of the irregularity of. the arrangements made for the sessions of the highest Court of Justice in the Colony. " The Zingari having arrived at nine o'clock on Tuesday evening, she sailed again at nine o'clock on Thursday morning, which left the Judge only one day for the transaction of the Tmsiness of the Supreme Court, as His Honor was under the necessity of proceeding on to Auckland, where the ill-health of the Chief Justice renders the presence of the puisne Judge necessary. The practice previously adopted, of issuing a second summons to jurors after the arrival of the Judge, naming the actual day on which the Court would sit,had in this instance to he departed from, because of the required attendance of the Judge at Auckland ; and the irregularity of the steamer, by exceeding the proper duration of her voyage to the South, rendered it necessary that she should limit her stay in Nelson to the shortest possible time, in order to be able to catch the William Denny with the mails. From these two causes, the business of our late session had all t« be transacted in a few hours, and after insufficient notice, and the trial of three cases postponed for six months, because the Judge could not even remain a second day to dispose of them. No one can say that this

is the way in which the business of tbe highest Court in the colony ought to be conducted. The Judge himself, in reply to a presentment from the Grand Jury complaining of the manner in which they had been summoned, admitted the extreme impropriety of the whole proceeding, and stated that, suffering, as he was, from the effects of a sea-voyage, he was not fit to sit on the bench on the only day he was at liberty to devote to the business.'' We have not space now to notice two important articles on the Financial condition of the Colony, which take the same view of the case as did the Financial Committee of the House of Representatives.