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New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5018, 24 April 1877, Page 2

The Lyttellon Times has taken upon itself to lecture the coroner's jury who sat to hear evidence and determine as to the cause of the death of Mrs. Laffin. Our contemporary gives us a homily upon the jury system in general, and tells us that the British juryman is sometimes a very wonderfully constituted .animal. We have heard the same remark before ; indeed, it seems impossible for certain people to write'about juries without dragging in this meaningless'and hackneyed expression. •. Considering the : wide circle from which juries are drawncoroners' juries especially—it would just be as wise to say that the British race is "wonderfully constituted. The Lyttelton Tithes moralises on the matter; but its. opinions on the Laffin case, like the facts on which it founded its opinions, are second-hand. The case has called forth much smypathy in this city, and that sympathy would have taken a practical form if required ; but no comment/ of an unfavorable nature has been made on the verdict of the coroner's jury. The jury were called to ..hear and determine upon tho evidence placed before them, . and that they determined in a sensible manner is the ...opinion of.almost all who are fully acquainted with the facts of the case. The medical gontloman who made thp post' morteui. examination stated that there were no signs of violence about tho body, and also that it was fairly nourished. In the face of that medical testimony, could any, number of sane men have returned a verdict either of wilful murder or manslaughter I Sentiment is right enough in its place, but tho much-abused British juryman is warned against tho exercise of his sentiment' or his imagination. Thore is littlo doubt that Michael Laffin by his shameful conduct contributed largely to the death of his wife, and tho jury added a rider to that effect. But the doctor told them that the unfortunate woman died from natural causes, and it would have been sheer nonsense for tho jury to have given any other verdict than one based on and in accordance with tho evidence placed beforo them. Thoy could not ignore both the evidonco adduced and the direction of tho coronor, who himself was well acquainted with the facts of tho case, being Surgeon-Suporin-tendent of tho institution in which Mrs. Laffin broathed her last. No man in this colony has a larger experience than Dr. Johnston, the coroner, in matters of this kind ; and it is not too much to say that his opinion is a hundredfold moro valuablo than that of our Christchurch contemporary. Thoro is no doubt, if thoro had booh a prima facie case to go to tho Supremo Court, Latfin would not havo escaped tho consequences of his conduct. Ho was not a man for whom any influenco or public feeling would have been brought to bear I to shield him from the law ; ais a proof of

this, it may be pointed outHhat he is now in prison in default of bail. The Lyttelton Times sees a direct contradiction in the verdict and the rider of tho jury. The jury found that deceased died from natural causes, and added the following rider :—" The jury desire to express their horror at the brutal treatment deceased received from her husband, Michael Laffin, and consider that his treatment of her was the original cause of her death." But this contradiction is more seeming than real. • The cause of death was too remote to legally sheet tho guilt home to the husband. For. months past, it was well known to the neighbors that Mrs. Laffin was being badly treated, perhaps not with violence of a dangerous nature, but with that worry and persecution which often as effectually personal injury. "Killing no murder"— in a legal sense—is a remark true in hundreds of instances, and it is one which fits exactly the late painful case. There is a wido difference between law and equity in innumerable instances in civil law, and there is one equally as wido between what constitutes moral and legal guilt. We are afraid this will always remain, and that juries in giving their decisions must keep their eye on the requirements of "the law. Scarcely a sittings of the Supremo Curt passes without one or other of the Judges admonishing those who have the power to commit prisoners for trial for sending them to a higher Court when there was no probability of sufficient evidence being forthcoming to sustain the charges, thereby putting the country to unnecessary exponse, and the Courts and jury often to considerable trouble and loss of time, besides in a measure bringing the law into contempt. After all, what signification is attached in tho present state of the law to the verdict of a coroner's jury ? Tho Magistrate's Court is in no way bound by it, and often completely ignores it. In fact, by a largo number of thinking men coroner's juries are considered a superfluity, and that the system will not continue much longer. i. We do not wish to discourage our contemporary from writing upon other subjects than those which pertain to Canterbury, or anything that will divert it from wailing over dead and gone provincialism; anything to relieve the utter dreariness of the "Dismal Jemmy" of the colonial Press. Hitherto its columns have been as flat as the ground upon which Christchurch is built. Buckle in his " History of Civilisation" makes an elaborate attempt to prove that the mind of man is largely influenced by the conformation of the surrounding country. For years we have not taken up the Lyttelton Times without being reminded of Buckle's theory, and that ■ there was a connection between the monotony of the oldest Canterbury paper and its natural surroundings.