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Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 264, 14 November 1878, Page 2

The judicial mind tSI the editor of the||iVe«; Zealander has been sorely exercised over the verdict of the Magistrates in the case of the girl White, recently charged with stealing a diamond ring. Having read the necessarily condensed report of the evidence — evidently in a very hasty and carelpss manner, judging from the many mistakes, aud misstatements that occur in his comments thereon — and having, after the hurried perusal, come to a different conclusion to that arrived at by the Justices who were engaged for five hours in giving a patient hearing to the case, he feels that he has a right to speak of those gentlemen in the following opprobrious terms i —" The need for reform iv this direction" (purifying the Justices' roll) "is occasionally brought before the public notice by exhibitions of crass ignorance, or glaring partiality, that should hot bo passed by in silence, and of these it may safely be asserted that somnolent Nelson has afforded more instances than any other town in the colony equal to it in size and importance. It has passed into a proverb that Justices are like necessity in knowing ho law, and the latest illustration of the truth of the aphorism is afforded by a case tried before Messrs H. C. Daniell and H. E. Curtis, on Friday last, in the Nelson Court-house." Now we are not going to discuss the merits of the case which called forth the foregoing remarks, but in justice to the gentlemen who have incurred the displeasure of the Neto Zealander we feel bound to say that two more painstaking magistrates never sat on any Bench in the colony. Of " crass igtiot-anci; " they certainly cannot be accused; "glaring impartiality," none who have been in the habit of sitting in the CoUtt when they were presiding will think of imputing to them; while it will be generally allowed by all who are in a position to form an opinion that their decisions are always arrived at after careful and thoughtful consideration of the merits of the cases which they are called upon to adjudicate. From the concluding paragraph of our contemporary's article we have derived a good deal of amusement. It is as follows:—" Justices of the Peace must not he interfered with by newspapers that want advertisements in Nelson, but certainly uninfluenced by the fear of consequences we direct public attention to what appears to be a flagrant instance among many cases of maladministration of the sacred powers of the law." We have at times in the course of our experience been called upon to criticise the decisions of the Justices on the Nelson Bench, but we have failed to make the discovery that by so doing we ran any risk of injuriously affecting the business interests of our paper, and were this the case we certainly should not be restrained byanysuch consideration from making adverse comments when called upon to do so. But that such a charge as this should come from the Neio Zealander is altogether too ludicrous. Why there is not another paper in the colony possessing a. smaller claim to be regarded as an independent journal. Supported by Ministerial money and spoon fed with Government advertisements since its birth, no matter how great the absurdities of which the present Government might be guilty, or what jobs they might perpetrate, the New Zealander would not dare to find fault with them. Yet it prates about being " uninfluenced by the fear of consequences " in its writing, and citea as a proof thereof the enormous amount of courage it displays in attacking a couple of distant Justices. When the Niw Zealander has displayed a little more independence in its own conduct, it may begin to talk about the fancied shortcomings of other journals in this respect, but not till then.