A WORTHY MAGISTRATE.

Mataura Ensign, Volume V, Issue 244, 6 April 1883, Page 2

A WORTHY MAGISTRATE.

That Mr McOulloch earns his salary, whatever it may be, must be conceded by all, We know of no public officer who would be more deserving of the consideration of a paternal Government .when the opportunity for proI motion in the service shall occur. Mr MsCulloch, as Resident Magistrate presiding over a very large district,— over the whole county of Southland in fact— gives unreservedly the whole of his time and attention to the performance of the duties devolving upon him in the lower Courts of the district. Besides being called upon to preside at the sittings of the R. M. Court, at Invercargill, several days during the week, Mr McCulloch has to dispose of the business accumulating at no less than six country Courts. At one or two of these the business is coaipara- : tively ligfht, but at the majority a very heavy list is brought forward every Court day, and protracted sittings are the rule, rather than the exception. Take for instance the last sitting of the R.M. Court, at Gore, when Mr McCulloch, after performing a wearisome journey by rail from Invercargill, sat from 10.30 a.m. till 10 p.m. and with exemplary patience listened to the mass of evidence brought forward, took his own notes, had inflicted upon him the dry-as-dust arguments of counsel, was called upon to consult ponderous authorities on law and equity, and decide nice points of law raised by opposing counsel,and to listen to the platitudes, hard swearing and complicated stories of witnesses. And through it all he managed to preserve a clear head, maintain a hold of the thread of miraculous stories and rescue from intricacies, apparently impenetrable, the chief points of the cases brought before him. Mr McCulloch labors assiduously to arrive at just decisions \ he spares himself no pains to get to the bottom of everything, and it is not a matter for any special wonder, therefore, that his verdicts, based as they are more on. the evidence adduced and on equity than on law, should be fair and just, and that his decisions have been, almost without exception, accepted as final. Very few appeals have been made on his decisions to a higher court, and this fact must give our worthy Magistrate some consolation for the many weary hours he is at times called upon to devote to the settlement of disputes between litigants and some reward for the untiring patience with which he devotes himself to arriving at fair and just adjudications.

• Waikaia Herald ' has during the week been sold to Mr Alfred Dolamore, who will immediately incorporate it with th« Matatoa Enston. The next issue of the ' Herald ' will be'itß last. We have not in the pasb neglected the district represented by our now praotioally moribund contemporary ; but our future efforts must not be gauged\by those of yore. We have now the sole journalistic charge of the large Waikaia , district; and we shall not fail to recognise the responsibility cast upon us. Already we have appointed an efficient reporter at Waikaia who will supply a weekly budget of news, and Mr Kelty, so well known throughout the district, has flßreed to accept the position of resident agent. With him advertisement* and the names of new subscribers may be left, and he will be prepared to transact any other bubineßS in connection with this journal. < Owing to the unavoidable absence of several member's of committee, the ordinary monthly meetipg of the Athenaeum, committee was adjourned from Tuesday evening last until this evening, at the Railway hotel.

The Opawa is loadiig ir zan meat at \hBluff. -nt6t;sod <orthe fflßaward^asaj rail ways tify ■ ■ ,1 dozen ferrei^ are[tsjbe Sent to ;Ssuthlan^irom the |;Ohrißtchul:ch |^Bclimaiii;ation\ Gar&eiis. '■ r ''.3[U ■'. \,«;'iv' ' ,. x, -."''i !. •» _/!,..£; ' „' Major Atk-ijisoVis jfctf address Meetings air Invercartrill tomorrow night and on Monday evening. The 'Frisco mail wa3 delivered ia this district yesterday afternoon. ' Ifc'is reported .that .the Fenians are send.iag infected liaea to ladies whose husbands are obnoxious to tha Fenian cause. i For the quarter ending 31et March tbew wero 27 births,, 6 deaths, and 2 marriages in district of Gore. At the Police Court, Gore, yesterday, before W. Souness, Esq., J.P., a drunk named John Cameron was fined 53, ■ An 823-ton barque bumped four or five times while crosßing "Port Chalmers bar on Saturday. This ia omin6u?, Mr J. Hislop, secretary to the Education Department, has returned to New Zealand from the Old Country. A man named Thomas Thornton was arrested at Waikaia yesterday by Constable Maher, on a warrant charging him with obtaining goods on false pretences from. Mr Beecott, of Mandeville. The^liabilities of Mr Enoch Jones, hofelkeeper, Nightcaps, and at one time of Wyndham, have been proved at nearly £1000. He attributes his bankruptcy to a forced sale of his hotel and belongings at Nightcaps. At Lumsden on Saturday last there was very pleasing ceremony, Me Crutch, Inspector of the permanent way on the InvercargillKingston section, being presented by the surfacemen with a suitably inscribed watch on his removal to' R&ngiora. Mr Hy. Craven, of Inveroargill, succeeds Mr Crutch. Major Atkinson has been addressing the Dunedin people this week on the land question pauperism, and other matters.- Mr Fish, like Mr Green has announced his intention ol holding a meeting to plaoa a rival scheme for the abolition of pauperism before the public In connection with the recent poisoning oase at Kaitangata, the ' Star ' says :— " The tart was analysed at Balolutha and found to contain alum. Enquiries Bhowed that Miss MoCormiok cooked the tart herself, out it, and laid it on the table. It is belitved that she feigned illness with the view of eliciting sympathy from a young man who was present, • • MrCargill, of Danedia. is, at the instigation of the Ofcago Land Board, to be asked the following questions with reference to the alleged recent 'cases of dummy 19m :— (1) Were you directly instructed by : the par* ohasera to bid for the land, and, if nob by them, by whom? (2) When were you instructed ? (3) Did tihey 1 pay you' or your Company the deposit,, and if ao, when? (4) Are you aware of any agreement of any kind between the purchasers and any other persons in reference to the land bid for ?" . At Wednesday's meeting of the Otago : Land Board, Banger Hoghan reported on A. Steel's application to purchase section 17> block X, Glenkenich, stating that the land was not required for local purposes,and,being a great harbor for rabbits, he recommended that it be sold at £2 per acre. Government to bs recommended to survey the section as a vilUge settlement. The application of William Anderson, seotion 10, block I, Ofcama to have his holding oapitalised, was granted. At Wednesday's sitting of the Inveroargill E.M. Court, George Forbes was charged with attempting to pass a valueless cheque for £1 atTapanuion the 25 bh February. Oa the application of the police the accused was remanded to that place, bail being allowed in one surety of £10. The charge of an un-< natural offence against .William Clegg, who was arrested at Dome Station, was proceeded with, the services of an interpreter having been secured. After hearing the evidence, which was taken with closed doors, accused was committed for trial at the next sitting of the {Supreme Court. • / * Waikaia * furnishes a, suicide this week, A Mongolian miner at Winding Greek wished speedy locomotion to the home of his fathers, and being without means set his mind to work to evolve some plan. Finally he determined upon suicide in the certain hope that his body would be conveyed to the Flowery Land along with the remains of a large number of his countrymen now stored at Green Island awaiting shipment to their destination. " John " expects ; to appear in China in the flesh ; hence he suspended himself by the neck with the most perfect equa. narnity and met death in the best possible hnmour. We don't know his name, and probably if we; were able to publish it oar readers would not be able to identify the deceased. The Board ef Reviewers for the . district of Southland under the Property Assessment and Rating Acts met at Invercargill on Tuesday last, there being present Messrs Cowan (chairman) J. T. Thomson \ and Dr Grigor. 6nr reporter applied for admission, but was informed that, the proceedings were private We understand.:, however, that out of fifty objections lodged from this district only four were dealt with in consequence of the nonappearance of the objectors. The four were: — Alfred Tapper, assessed for a sawmill area of 1613 acres. The objector staled feat he had abandoned 1000 acres and also that the value of this property was only £1 per acre. Area reduced to 613 acres and value to£l per acre.— David Andrews, Brooklands, Otaria. Sections 298 and. 299, valued at £1700. The objector stated that his property was only worth £500 per seotion, and the valuation was reduced to that amount. —James Logan,Greenvale, Kelso, Knapdale Road District : Holding of 5468 acres, valued at £2 10a per acre. Deduced to £2 5s per acre.— The name of F. Calvert, a& bolder of section 26, block, 5, and part of section 26, block 11, Boslyn Piains was struck out,' and on the application of the valuer that of A, Drysdale substituted. < Thatsapient and philosophistioaliadividual the Gore correspondent of the * Southland Timeß, v has again displayed his utter inability to cope with questions of publio importance. Referring to the recent, scenes of rowdyism in Main street, he says :— •• More police is the remedy asked for. It is un_ deniable thitinos^ if not all,, oft. such barbarous spectacles are due to an over indulgence in alcohol, Would it not then be a more consistent course to adopt, to lobbou the temptation and allurements to over iadulgenoe." i Thie, of couwe, means that, ia the opinion of, this journalistic embryo, no fresh licenses should be issued, and that some already existing should be cancelled. That such a course would be inimical to the best interests of the town must be apparent to all who fairly and impartially consider the question. Ribid teetotallers may howl at an increase of license?, but, after all, what would be the result of cancelling existing licenses or refusing to grant new ones? Simply this, a loss to the revenue of the town and quite as much drunkenness as formerly. We do not advocate free trade in liquor, but the business is one that will find its own leve). We do not believe that if there were half a dozen more licensed houses in the town there would be any more drunkenness than at present. People who • mean to get intoxicated can as easily do bo in one hotel— easier ' perhaps than by distributing themselves around half a dezea licensed houses.

Ratima Jacob, a Maori whoHj|l|phi| w|jp atKai«osra' some time ago by sfcaMfeog her.) in , ,eight,pjlaSe.s. because^of her^iafidelity'with. hjs v jiist-b'eia.se"n^nced to death ab> 'the I hristcburch SSuprem^'Conrt.; 1 The, juicy j strongly 'recommended him to raeroyr • The-; .Judge said thab'Ee believed it wpuld not be j ;his daty'io make any repreßentat oh' at •■ yatxi^nce with the recommendation ■; J. .„),'' Two "'good nigger-drivers lost ! At the conclusion of the inquest on the boy Wain, who was bo brutally ill-treated by his parents at South Dunedin, the jury brought in a verdict at first, x that ; death was . caused. Jby.,,. tuber-, culpais, accelerated and induced by ill-treat-'nient a . n^ neglect ou the part of his father and step-mother. The Coroner pointed out that this was equivalent to a verdict of murder whereupon the jury reconsidered their verdict, and eventually found that the chili died from, natural causes ; adding a rider to the, effect 'that he had been subjected to "gross brutality and ili-treatment. At the Police Court, Gore, on Wednesday, before W. Sounese Esq., J. P., a man named John Welsh, a recent arrival, was fined sfl for drunkenuess. Janus Weldon was charged with using obscene language in Main street on the evening of the 27th March. Several witnesses were examined but no evidence being forthcoming to justify a conviction the caso was dismissed. Mr B. Howells, whose advertisement appears on pur fiwt page.has taken possession of the Railway Hotel, and has already effected some improvements and given earnest of his intention to make it a firJt-class well conducted hojise. Thp Southland sawmillers, with the exoep« ti on | of the bands employed at two mill*, have; strnck I eoause their wages are to be reduced, for bushmen to 8s per day, and for bullock drivers to £10 per month. Fourteen hundred pounds are paid away in sawmillera' wajea every week in South* land. Brcfders of shrep will note with interest that Green and Somiess (in conjunction with, Shanks and B irr) hold an important ram sale at Gore on the 24th April. As there seemß no likelihood of a ram fair being held oere this year, this sale will supply a felfc want and afford an excellent opportunity for the exchange of stock. Silver medals are to be; given for the bust sheep in eaoh class offered for bona fide sale.