The Nelson Evening Mail. MONDAY, DECEMBER 6. 1869.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume IV, Issue 285, 6 December 1869, Page 2

The Nelson Evening Mail. MONDAY, DECEMBER 6. 1869.

The result of the case Regina v. Braithwaite for bigamy, which came on for trial oa : Saturday last, • has naturally caused considerable surprise. That a case so clear and so easily proved, had ordinary care been observed, should have so lamentably broken down is generally considered a scandal to the administration of justice and a reproach to society. With these feelings we entirely sympathise, and endorse to the full the expressions of regret which reach us from all sides upon the case in question. , There is however no reason to attribute the failure of justice to any default ia our . judicial system. Fortunately our law is so far perfect as to provide adequate means of bringing to justice all offenders against it, and this, the exceptional natur 6 of the occurrence now Defore _ us rather tends to demonstrate. In this vefcy case the law was ample in its provisions, and clear in its terms, and had common intelligence and ordinary care been observed we should not have seen so -humiliating a spectacle as that presented on Saturday last. ■■"• ■■'■' ; ■'•..."" ■-'•■'■■" The question then which will readily suggest itself is, where has been the Jack of intelligence and the ,want of. care which has caused-.this undesirable state of things ? Now we have heard the blame very, freely ascribed; to the- prown Prosecutor here, but than this nothing could be more unfair, as the blame rests entirely with those who had charge of the case in ' Chf istchufcti. The prisoner was first committed by the Resident Magistrate at Westport to Christcburch, but the Judge there declined to try the case and remanded it to ■ Nelson. An infirm witness, without whose evidence the Crown could not proceed, was unable to travel, and could not therefore be present at the trial here. .The law, however, provides that in such a case the deposition of the witness may be read as evidence, if ;it can be proved lhat the deponent is actually unable to travel. It would seem scarcely possible to commit a blunder j herein, but what do we fiud ? Why, the authorities at Christchurch send a medical ! man who never 1 saw the witness before, but no one to identify the woman seen by the doctor as the person whose deposition it was sought to read ! Had some such simple course as sending with the doctor a constable who had been present at the Magisterial enquiry for the purpose of identification, been adopted, the country would not have paid away some hundreds of pounds fruitlessly, and we should not have been called upon to record what we have already characterised as a lamentable and humiliating failure of justice.