The New Zealander.

New Zealander, Volume 5, Issue 367, 20 October 1849, Page 2

The New Zealander.

Be just and fear not: Let all the ends Ihou aiius't at, be thy Country's, Thy God's, and Truth's.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1849.

A notification in the last Government Gazette (which will be found in another part of our paper) declares that certain Footpaths which have been formed in various parts of the town shall henceforward be deemed to be Public Footpaths within the meaning of Ordinance 12, Session No. 8. As the length of time which has elapsed since the passing of that Ordinance may have caused its provisions to escape the memory of many, it may not he amiss to remind our readers that it enacts a penalty not exceeding twenty shillings on any person who shall " wilfully run, draw, or drive any truck, wheelbarrow, cart, or carriage whatsoever, or shall wilfully ride, lead, or drive any horse, or any horned or neat cattle on any such Public Footpath." When the offence is continued after the offender has been warned by a constable or any other person, the penalty is to be increased to five pounds. The penalties in all such cases are to be recovered in a summary way. The Ordinance is designed, we suppose, to preserve the paths from injury, and to prevent inconvenience to pedestrians. Some may think, indeed, that several of the paths are scarcely worth preserving, and that it would be hardly possible for any use or abuse to make them much worse than they have been throughout the year ; or, at all events, that if the regulations be of any value they might have been brought into operation more fittingly at the commencement than at the close of the winter. And, as respects the matter of convenience to foot passengers, the provisions seem defective in placing no expressed restraint on the standing of horses or cattle on the path, which is frequently a most annoying nuisance in our streets. We have, even since the date of the Gazette announcement, and in one of the thoroughfares named in it, seen respectable females obliged to go almost into a gulph of mire because hotses were held on the footpath awaiting their riders. We have heard the question asked, and should be glad if some gentleman " learned in the law," would kindly inform the public whether the Ordinance provides, in any strictly legal form, for such a case as this, however repeatedly and disagreeably it may occur. The horses were not "ridden," "led," or " driven ;" and yet they were incommoding passengers quite as much as if they had been. The spirit of the law is no doubt against the annoyance, and a Magistrate's " good conscience" would probably decide accordingly ; but what is there in its letter to abate the nuisance ? We may take this occasion to observe that, whoever may accuse our Colonial Legislature of precipitancy now [and again in enacting laws, no man can deny that our Executive, in some instances, takes time enough for deliberation before carrying them into operation. This Foot Path Ordinance lay upon the statute book unnoticed and almost unknown for two full years. We lately called attention to another — and, in some respects, a much more important one — the Slaughter House Ordinance passed in the same session (Oct., 1847), which, as respects some of its most valuable provisions, — the appointing of a public Slaughter House, and of a qualified and responsible Inspector — remains to this day a dead letter, notwithstanding reiterated and urgent representations of the need there is for bringing them into practical effect. So also with regard to the Lunatics' Ordinance referred to in our last, which, although of still older date, continues practically inefficacious for its salutary and benevolent purposes, because the principal power which it recognises — (that of appointing a Public Hospital or Asylum for insane persons) — has not been exercised. We frequently hear it stated an axiom of political wisdom that the laws which are best administered are best ; but in what , category are we to place laws which are not administered at all?

Let us add here the expression of our hope that the regulations of the Foot Path Ordinance will now at least be carried into effect, on system, and without respect of persons. Many who have themselves contributed in private for the repairs of paths which the public authorities ought to have looked after, have had the mortification of seeing them day after day iujuriously and wantonly trespassed on by horses and cattle, while the Ordinance by which the abuses might have been prevented stood before them in print as if to mock them. The least ofjamends that the public has a riglt to expect for past negligence in this matter, is attention and activity on the part of the Police in future.

It would be another added to the thousand-and-one evidences of the proverbial uncertainty of the law if the decision of the Judges of the Supreme Court in some of the cases of the Crown grants made by Governor Fitzßoy — elaborate, closely reasoned, and undoubtedly conscientious as those judgments confessedly were — should eventually be reversed by the final Court of Appeal — the Privy Council. And yet, we are informed, on what we are warranted in considering better authority than rumour, that such may not improbably prove the fact. Indeed, we have heard that the highest Law Officers of the Crown at home were of opinion that it would be so. To the land claimants— or, we may now more correctly say, the land owners — in those cases, such a reversal of the judgments pronounced here would be practically unimportant, as their titles are quieted and their possessions secured by the Crown Titles Ordinance of last session of Council. But it would confute, though it may not silence, the cavils of those who have sedulously laboured to deprive the introduction of that measure of any character of grace or liberality on the part of the Colonial Government, by representing it as coming too late for any useful purpose, and no more than a subtle attempt to make a merit of necessity, by appearing to do voluntarily what the inexorable and unalterable fiat of the law had declared must be done. To the large number of holders of Crown grants, whose individual claims have not been made the subject of legal investigation or adjudication, the Ordinance is yet more important ; as the issue of proceedings in their cases would necessarily be invested with the greatest hazard, if other cases substantially identical with them in their main features, had previously been determined adversely by the Privy Council. At all events, it is not too much to say that the holders of such Grants in ftie Province are, as matters at present stand, relieved by the Ordinance from doubts and uncertainties, as well as from delays and expenses, which, but for its enactment, must, in a greater or lessee degree, have harassed them ; and that it would not be becoming in them at least to join in or countenance aspersions on the motives which prompted a measure from which they derive some certain and immediate benefit, and to which, it is more than possible, they may at no distant day, owe the entire of their legal right to their possessions.

New Magistrate. — The last Government Gazette announces the appointment of Captain Theodore M. Haultain, of the New Zealand Pensioners, to be a Justice of the Peace for this Province. Here. — We are informed that this celebrated Chief's health has for some time past showed symptoms of breaking up 1 ; and that he is now considered to be in a very precarious slate, from an affection of the lungs.