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Manawatu Times, Volume II, Issue 69, 16 June 1877, Page 2

TO THE-El>lTOB. * Sib, — My attention. \has been drawn) to a letter signed " Simplex," in the' " Manawatu Times " of the 9th instant, severely censuring . the , action" of the' Licensing Court at its late sitting' -at , Otaki.. The charges are serious,- but Ican show that they ,are unwarrantable^ i and that the inspired writer has selected a most appropriate sobriquet in "-Sim-c plex" if the least; flattering construction is put on it ! ■ . The first sentence of his letter is certainly more obscure than profound, buff' it is not my intention to comment on the production beyond controverting the following, charges. Ist; That the five cases .before the Court were settled in less than a^quarter of an hour. This is utterly 'at • variance with the fact, fbt^ the cases were only disposed of after- nearly two hours' careful consideration. - 2|itL, That the constable" of the "district was not examined as to how the public-houses and ferries were qonducted. Again -I must dispute the veraeity of" Simplex,"" for the Court did make such inquiries of the Constable. This I am prepared to prove, as indeed all I here state.. 3rd* That a member of the Licensing Bench was treated with discourtesy by the Court, by "receiving no intimation of its sitting, though living within two minutes' walk of the Court-house." Surely this absent member is " Simplex ;" and he should be aware that the time of the 1 meeting "of the Licensing. Court is pub'licly notified in r the newspapers, and - that a -Court cannot fairly be qharged * with discourtesy for not .hunting up a truant member of the Bench, when that '

Court 'was competent, as then constituted, to adjudicate on the matters for which it had met. It is certainly much to be deplored, that the truant member ■. only reached the Court "in time to be .• 'too late," otherwise great reforms would have probably been brought aboutj and the unwarrantable charges, together with the lesser ones of "haste ; and. yant of enquiry to of the -to the absent member " '•might possibly have never been made, against a Court composed of >cpns6ieritiouSj painstaking, and cpufte'ous gen-tleme"n.^-t am, &c, I '■'■ Qtakii.runey 12th, 1877:. '