A TWOPENNY DISPUTE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 156, 30 June 1873, Page 2

A TWOPENNY DISPUTE.

The Evening Popst gives the following report of a case recently heard before the Resident Magistrate at Wellington :— The Rev. ?J. C. Andrew was charged with refusing tp pay the , lawful toll, ,' 2d;, demanded at the, Kaiwarra gate. . Mr Travers appeared for the prosecution; and Mr Andrew conducted hia own defence. / Mr Travers having briefly opened the case, Charles Thompson, jun., the -'lessee- of the toll gate, stated that he had demanded

from the defendant 2d tolJ,7and that the latter refused to pay it. 7 Walter Hariris gaye Bimilar ( ;evidence. The Hon Captain 7Fraser gave evidence as to tile motie*bf levying tolls-iin Otago. Mr Andrew then stated his arguments, which were particularly abstruse, tremendously complex, and wonderfully knowing. He declared ,in sonorous tones; and with ternfio emphasis, that the action involved a dreadful infringement of the rights of every English subject; that the Act itself was. ultra vires to an appalling extent; that the delivery of her Majesty's mails in Mastertbn was delayed no less than twenty minutes by these profligate extortions,, thus most treasonably infringing the Royal prerogative." He further insisted on reading the Independent's reports of some speeches in the Provincial Council, particularly one of the Provincial Solicitor's (Mr Borlase). He further proceeded to a dissertation on the forty-one meanings given in Johnson's Dictionary of the word " for " ag 'distinguished from "from," "by," and other prepositions, and he maintained that as the word "from" did; not ' occur in the Act, he was not liable for any- tolls demanded" from " him. He then enlarged on some Imperial Post Office Acts of William IV., and maintained that the toll>maoi by stopping the mail and demanding toll from him— Mr Andrew—had rendered himself liable to penal servitude for life. .'.-. The Resident Magistrate said that as . thiV c»se,!was simply brought up for the purpose of testing the matter, he should only inflict a nominal penalty. The fine ; would therefore be ls aud costs, the defendant being ordered to pay the two-. _pence. - - . Defendant gave notice of appeal. .

The coach from Reefton, yesterday, brought down a cuke of gold weighing 560 0z from the Anderson's Claim, and .a c»ke ; weighing 1290z 18dwt from the Wealth of Nations Claim. The result from the Wealth was for 12 day's crushing; the upper plates were scraped, but not the lower ones. The gold from both claims was lodged at the Bank of New Zealand. — G. R. Argus. Our Prater Meetings .■— -The Baptist, under this head, baa an article from which iwe extract the following : — Something might be done by those who conduct our prayer meetings to throw more life and variety ' into them. Monotony is, from the necessity of the case, the sin which most easily besets the services; the sin against which it behoves those who lead tbem... most anxiously to guard. Some conductors of prayer meetings are little more than machines for giving out hymns and calling on persons to pray. Hymn and prayer, hymn and prayer, in unbroken alternation, often a long hymn sleepily sung, and followed by a longer prayer; this is the mechanical round into which these services are, by such leaders, permitted to fall. The president of a prayer meeting should be a living man, infusing his own life and individuality into the meeting which he leads. There need be, there ought to be, no rant, or bluster, or eccentricity. Naturally and unobtrusively, by the very tone in which he reads the hymne, by a word or two spoken sometimes about the hymn before it is sun?, by the reading of a few verses in the Bible with two or three sentences of homely, warm-hearted comment, by calling on two occasionally to follow one another in prayer, without the intervening hymn; by methods which his own thought and judgment will suggest, the conductor may save iho meeting from dulness and routine. The conductor of a prayer meeting is not a service which can be rightly fulfilled by any man anyhow. It is a service of much spiritual ; delicacy, involving serious responsibility, claiming earnest thought and preparation of heart in him who undertakes it. For lack of remembering this many, a meeting is marred.