SUPREME COURT.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 4850, 7 October 1876, Page 2

SUPREME COURT.

CIRCUIT SITTINGS. (Before his Honor the Chief Justice.) Friday, October 7. The Court resumed at 12 o'clock. M’ INTYRE V. CAPPER AND OTHERS. This was a special jury case, and was adjourned until the next sitting day. The Court was then adjourned until the 16th inat. SITTING IN BANCO. Immediately after the adjournment of the Circuit Court a banco sitting was held. CONTEMPT OF COURT. His Honor asked the Deputy-Registrar if he had obtained any evidence as to the writer of the letter referred to during Tuesday’s sitting. Mr. Wilmer replied that he had inquired into the matter, and handed an affidavit to his Honor. His Honor then said that on Tuesday last he had instructed the Registrar to inquire into the matter, and now there was evidence before the Court that between 4 and 5 o’clock on the evening of that day, during the sitting of the Court, a letter addressed to him had been delivered to the Registrar, with instructions that it was intended for him (the Chief Justice). This letter was brought by a clerk in the employ of Messrs. Barton and Fitzherbert, of Brandon-street, and the signature to the letter was verified as that of Mr. George Elliot Barton of that firm. It seemed to be beyond all question a great contempt to the Court, Every insult offered to a Judge of the Court in or with reference to the exercise of the duties of his office, whether

tempt aforesaid. His Honor instructed the Begistrar to see that the order was served personally on Mr. Barton.

The Court then adjourned till ten o’clock on Monday next.

committed in court or out of. court, was a contempt. Seeing that the gentleman who ap-. peared to be the writer of this letter was a practitioner of the Court of long standing, for that and other reasons, if he consulted his personal feelings upon the subject, he should have taken no further notice of the matter except to make the receipt of the letter public ; but to allow his personal feelings to actuate him in the matter, or in the course he pursued, he should consider himself guilty of a dereliction of duty. He therefore ordered that Mr. George Elliot Barton do personally attend the Court on Monday next, at 10 o’clock a.ra., peremptorily, to answer for contempt of the Court committed on the 3rd October instant, by writing and causing to be delivered to James Brendergast, the Chief Justice of that honorable Court, the letter mentioned in the said affidavit of Henry Chudleigh Wilmer, and then and there show cause why he should not be punished and dealt with as the Court should think fit for his con-