New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) SATURDAY, JUNE 30, 1877.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5076, 30 June 1877, Page 2

New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) SATURDAY, JUNE 30, 1877.

We are all cognisant of the law's dolays, and In Wellington delay is said to be the natural concomitant of any attempt to get business done in the Resident Magistrate's Court office. We have before us a plain statement of a caso which for its final adjustment in our local Court took exactly two months, and we give that statement as follows : —On the 7th of April a summons was issued, and on the 13th April the case came on for hearing, when, the defendant not appearing when called in the usual way, judgment was given for £36 14s. and £A Bs. costs. The matter remained in this position until the 17th April, when, the defendant not having p&id into Court the amount of the judgment and costs, plaintiff took out execution. Upon plaintiffs solicitor enquring, on tho Bth May, what became of tho execution, ho was informed by the bailiff that it had been returned nulla bona, and that tho dofendant had assigned all his property to his father-in-law. The solicitor then remonstrated, and told the bailiff that his duty was to have taken out an interpleader summons in terms of the Besident Magistrate's Act, or at loast to have given him notice of tho existence of this assignment or bill of sale, in order that the matter might be contested. The magistrate being absent from the Court, a judgment summons was issued thereupon, which summons was served in the usual cou«», jmd came en foe hearing on the

21et May. The plaintiff's solicitor ap-1 peared at three minutes to eleven o'clock, eleven o'clock being the time for the hearing of the summons, and was informed by the magistrate that the defendant had applied for a rehearing, which he felt disposed to grant ; and upon being remonstrated with, he said he would not do so unless the defendant would find security for the amount in question. This application was entertained before the solicitor for the plaintiff appeared in Court ; the magistrate thereupon adjourned the case till twelve o'clock. At twelve o'clock the plaintiff's solicitor again appeared, but the defendant was unable to find security, whereupon the magistrate again adjourned the case till one o'clock on the same day. At one o'clock the plaintiff's solicitor again appeared, and there was no magistrate. The case, by some means unknown to the plaintiff's solicitor, had been adjourned till the next day, on which day the magistrate granted to the defendant a rehearing, on condition that he should pay all the costs incurred up to that time, and find security to the satisfaction of the clerk of the court for the amount claimed. The plaintiff's solicitor protested against what to him appeared to be an abuse of the procedure of the Court; but the magistrate took little notice of any such protest, and granted the rehearing upon the terms suggested by himself. The plaintiff's solicitor then left the Court, and on the twentyeighth day of May, when engaged in' other matters in the Court, he inquired if any security had been given, and was answered in the negative ; and upon this the magistrate sent notice to the defendant that the judgment summons would be heard on the 31st May. On attending on that day for the purpose of hearing the judgment summons, the magistrate granted the rehearing for Thursday, the fth June, the defendant having paid into Court the costs incurred to date, and found security to abide the event. On the 7th June judgment was finally given for the plaintiff, with costs, as at first. We have nothing to say against the Resident Magistrate in this instance. He acted under the 99th section of the Resident Magistrates Act, which reads : "It shall be lawful for any Resident Magistrate before whom a civil case shall have been heard in his discretion to grant a rehearing of such case upon such terms as to giving security or otherwise as to him shall seem fit, and in the meantime to stay execution." Now the case we have detailed above was one of a poor workman suing for his wages, and it will be seen that owing to the repeated delays he was kept out of his money for exactly two months from the date of the issue of the summons. In the meantime his family was destitute, and when it became necessary to take out the judgment i summons he declared, with tears on his ' face, that he had not a shilling more to pay the fees, which were then paid by his solicitor. Evidently the law wants amendment when cases like this can occur under it.