OFFICIAL HASTINESS. Two Possible Wrongs.

Free Lance, Volume I, Issue 21, 24 November 1900, Page 6

OFFICIAL HASTINESS. Two Possible Wrongs.

HASTINESS or carelessness in identification is no new thing. There is some agitation in Taranaki just now touching a four years' sentence given to a lad for an assault upon a young woman upon her unsupported testimony. She had seen the lad in a shop in which she was previous to the assault, which took place at night and in darkness. The boy bore a good reputation, and at a public meeting testimony as to his supposed innocence was given. There is a strong feeling that the case was not sufficiently investigated in the interests of justice without regard to the securing of a conviction, and if some of the statements made can be borne out there is sufficient reason for re-opening the matter. * • • A second case, nearer home, has to do with a young Wellingtonian, whose body was found upon one of the stations in the Wairarapa the other day. A gun was found near his body, , and it was known to have been his ' custom to go out rabbiting occasionally. Notwithstanding that gun accidents have been frequent of late, the local policeman got it into his head that it was a case of suicide, and pushed on the inquest, and a verdict to that effect was returned. The young fellow's relatives in the city were not even informed, and the inquest appears to have been a superficial one at the best. The smallest effort at enquiry would have shown that there was no motive for suicide. Now it transpires that the verdict, besides placing a reflection on the deceased's memory, has deprived a widow of £200 insurance money. * * * It is understood that the deceased was young, a keen sport, he had money in the bank, he had only the previous week written a cheerful letter to his mother, while a privatelyobtained post mortem, examination made at the instance of his brother proved that all his organs were in a thoroughly normal and healthy state. There was more likelihood of a sad accident than of suicide. We desire to make no reflection upon the police, who have many duties to attend to, and who are obliged to hasten the interment of a dead body found under such circumstances as these. But, at the same time, we fear that a wrong has been done both to the dead and the living in this particular matter.

There were some painful speakers, it is said, amongst the candidates at the recent Victorian elections. One candidate, so the yarn goes, took seven minutes to utter eleven words on one occasion, and was not encouraged when an elector cried, sympathetically, " Never mind, old fellow, don't strain a sinew ; we only came here to look at you."