The Nelson Evening Mail. FRIDAY, JUNE 1, 1877.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XII, Issue 129, 2 June 1877, Page 2

The Nelson Evening Mail. FRIDAY, JUNE 1, 1877.

A Blenheim telegram which appeared in yesterday's issue stated that the Revising Officer had ruled that "the onus of the proof of disqualification lay with the objectors." From our Marlborough files and other sources, however, we laara that the ruling was not precisely in these words, and as it is a matter of interest to others besides those immediately concerned, we will briefly state tha circumstances of this pauicular case. Some time ago Captain Kenny and Mr John Godfrey contested the seat for Picton in the House of Representatives, when the latter was defeated. Mr Godfrey has always been afflicted with an irresistible desire for seeing his name in print, ann on the present occasion, as he has frequently done before, he appears as the objector to a very large number of claimants to be placed ou the electoral roll, almost all those objected to being, strange to say, electors who supported Captain Kenny, and consequently opposed Mr Godfrey in the late contest. So much for the prelude. Now for the play itself. The Revision Court was held as advertised, when the irrepressible Mr Godfrey rose to address the presiding officer, and met with snub number one, being told that as he was not an advocate of the Court he had no right to speak unless called upon. He was ordered to sit down. Afterwards, when placed on his oath and called upon to state the grounds of his first objection which appeared on the list, he replied that it was no business of hi 3 to prove his case, that he had heard that the qualification had ceased, and that it was for the claimant objected to (who had been on the roll for some years) to show that he was entitled to a vote. It was then that the Revising Officer ruled that, the objector having no knowledge that there was any validity in his objection, and no evidence being tendered in support of it, and as the name of the party appeared on the list of electors, where it could only have been placed on his making the declaration required Jby law that he had the necesssry qualification, he must take that as a prima facie proof to his satisfaction that the person objected to was entitled to be retained on the list of voters. This is slightly different from the ruling as it first appeared in curt telegraphic phraseology.