A TALE OF AN AUCKLAND JURY.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 175, 23 August 1878, Page 4

A TALE OF AN AUCKLAND JURY.

Curious stories Jiavo (says the " Auckland Herald ") been lold before ihis respecting the doings of Auckland juries, buf the following which wo find in an Adelside paper is novel: — "You may rot h&lieve it, gentlemen, but 'pon my soul it's a fact, I've tossed up f or a nia»'s lite, and won !" Thr- sronker ws« ft quince-faced ftran- , per, aitfinp in tbp corner of friend Morton's Southern Oobs hostelrie, Tho audience comprised some of the living coruscations of Adelaide, end your burahle servant j ever, ss usual, on the look ont for any thing good enough to suit his readers, " Look here," snid the genial host, with an emphatic flourish of his right arm " I dou't know you, mr.te, but you're a most nrausing cusa, Tell you what it ie ; give us the yarn of that tosa up for life, and I'll give the festive Roederer for the company." With the brief reply " You're on," the quince-faced stranger emptied his glass of May's premier bottlin?, in lively anticipation of the "fiz" to come ; pulled up his pair of Dillon's champion Wellingtons ; passed bis band through the head of hair bo recently decorated at Glenelg by Rush, and plunged at once into the following narrative, which ho carried out relentlessly to the bitter end i — " Gentlemen, I was pursuing the ovfn tenour of my way — ('hard up for two fivers, that^tener means,' fjaculated host Eobert) — when I found myself in Auckland, carrying on the peaceful avocation of a land a^ent, including the lucrative business of supplying the rebel Maoris with leaden sash weights, wax matches, and eyelet holes." '•'What was that for ?" demanded one of the company. tc Well, you see," was the calm reply, •'gunpowder, bullets, and percussion caps were contraband of war at the time ; and I had no desire for a neckstretchcr at the hands of Sir Duncan Cameron. It wbs before Kangariri, gentlemen. So I instructed the Maoris how to make rifle-bullets o»t of sash weights, and you would scarcely believe how admirably the tops of wax matches cut off and inserted into eyelets auswered the purpose of percussion caps. Bnt to return to my subject. One day a constable paid me a visit with a summons for the jury. I went, saw, and got run into the bos with eleven others empanelled to try two Maoris, Hori Taka nnd Matiu, for rubbing out a settler's family up the Weikato. Tho main evidence wos that of the only survivor, a boy who had been tomahawked and left for dead, but who distinctly swore to the two men in the dock as being the slaughterers of his relatives. The judge (old Sir George Arney) charged us dead again&t 'the tn»gers, and we retired to consider otir verdict. Now, I was doing a big business with the natives at that time; and it wouldn't have done for me to be one of a dozen that scragged two promising specimens of the race. Five oihirs from buaicc-Bs reasons held the eatno vitw; but the remaining six, includiiuj the loreruuo, were de-id on for a conviction, We wrangled, traokad, eong songs, a&u iii.-d o-her ways 10 pass away the time; but ihere wo were at 5 o'clock, six of one and half a dozen of the other. At last tbejudge sent in to soy that if we were not agreed by 10 o'clock, we must be locked up all nigol. Thai fixed our foreman's fliut, H? was a master siouemason; hnd the contr&ct ior some new building under way, and about fifty men working for him. " Look bore, boys," he said, " it's plain we cau't agree, we're too evenly divided for that- Now, I tell you what it is. If I'm locked up to-night" — (it was on a Saturday) — "there'll be the divil to pay with my men. I'll lose a lot of money. Tell yon what we'll do. We'll tosa for it, Guilty or Not Guilty; and I'll stand a supper afterwards ronnd at the Freemason's." Suiting the actiou to the word, he cnt off a button from his flannel jacket. It was one of those big mother-o'-pearl buttons, common on such articles, black on one side, white on the other. Selecting me aa the champion of the "not guilty " — the foreman was straight for hanging 'em, —he continued— "Now tlien, we're all agreeable. Black, the niggers goes loose; white, they swings. Up it goes." I took the button, and looked at it to see all fair. Up went the said button, and came down Black. We went into Court. " Gentlemen of the Jury, are you all agreed upon your verdict ?" says old O'Brien, the Judge's Associate. " We is," Bays the foreman. "How say you, gentlemen of the Jury, do you find the prisoners at the bar guilty or not guilty ?" asked the deputy beak. "Not guilty." They were turned loose, and rubbed noses outside with their mates. Next day I saw them selling peaches about the streets. " But were they guilty ?" asked one | of the company. j " Well, it so turned out that they were not, replied the quince-faced stranger. " Three days afterwards the real culprits were taken with a mob of others at King's Redoubt, and a swagman who had been hiding in the bush j while the tomahawking of the settler's family was going on, came forward and identified them by a peculiar pattern ' tattooed on their aims— the mark of the ' Ngaruawahia chiefs." " What a fortunate interposition of Providence ia favor of the innocent J"

y exclaimed the only righteous one in our midst. "You bet!" exclaimed the quincefaced stranger, quietly. "I had the handling of that button juat before it was shied up. I had also some liquid lamp-black in my coat pocket, shouldn't wonder if the white side of tbe button got a bit smutted in the confusion. Yes, mate, your moral's very proper and pretty." Morton produced the champagne. — Adelaide Lantern.