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New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5534, 21 December 1878, Page 2

The quarrel of Mr. Babton with tho Chief Justice and Judge Richmond has advanced another stop. It may be that it is the final one, and that Mr. Barton will quietly let the matter drop. We do not, however, anticipate that he will do anything of the sort. He is of a pugnacious, litigious disposition, and the excitement of the sort of controversy which has boon going on between himself and tho Government and Judges has, for a mind constituted liko his, an indescribable charm. To live in continual "hot water" is with some mon a state of things very much to be desired. Since tho letter which was addressed by the Government to Mr. Babton last week, dealing with the charges against tho Judges and refusing an inquiry, ho has fired another shot in the shape of a long letter to the Colonial Secretary. Mr. Babton treats the preliminary enquiry, which tho Government held at his request and suggestion, with the greatest possible contempt. He will not admit that anything whatever has been done in tho way of eliciting the truth. Ho derides the idea that the subject has occupied tho serious attention of the Government, and plainly insinuates that tho letter of Colonel Whitmobe to himself was not a Ministerial production, but was composed by Mr. Justice Richmond, ono of the Judges against whom tho charges wore brought. Tho further this case is enquired into the more clear it becomes that Mr. Babton is under the influence o£ a series of delusions. We say so from no wish to givo that gentleman pain, ob from a desire to stir him up to further reprisals on the Judges for what he believes to have been their misconduct. Wo should be only too glad il he could be

brought to view the matter from the standpoint occupied by other people. There is probably no hope of his being able to accomplish anything of the sort. He has unfortunately chosen to put himself into the position of " a man with a grievance," and all the world knews well what the inevitable result is to the person who supposes himself wronged, and can see and hear nothing in the world except what appears to bear ou his lamentable case. Ruin is the result—ruin to his prospects; ruin to his health; and in a multitude of cases, ruin to his mind. Even where the wrongs are not, as in Mr. Barton's case, imaginary, the rosult is too often the same. The mischief is done by persistently shutting out everything but the one subject, and allowing that to take full possession of the mind. All that is more a question for the consideration of Mr. Barton and his private friends. What the public are interested in is to know whether there is any truth in these repeated attacks. Looking at this last letter of Mr. Barton's we find that there is now included in his censure every one of the Ministry, and to some extent Mr. Travers. Col. Whitmorb is deliberately taxed with having allowed Judge Richmond to write the reply for the Government, and to have adopted it as coming from the Ministry ; and the insinuation is deliberately made that the distressing illness of the Judge himself was merely assumed to secure for him the necessary leisure to concoct the answer. To show that we have not done Mr. Barton an injustice in taxing him with making this shameful insinuation, we will quote one paragraph from his letter. It is as follows : "Ever since the simultaneous demand " for inquiry which followed my speech, " and rendered it imperative that some- " thing must be done to allay public dis- " trust, Mr. Justioe Richmond has been " absent from his Court duties through " 'illness;' and on the very day I was " officially informed that the draft of your " letter was completed and would be sent "to me as soon as fair copied, Mr. " Richmond steamed out of Wellington " harbor on his holiday trip to the hot " springs. I can now fathom the pur- " pose of the astonishing statement that " ' the Government have not thought it " necessary to communicate with any of " the Judges'—that purpose being to "draw a red herring across the scent." After reading those sentences we trust no one will be found hardy enough to deny that the most charitable construction to put on Mr. Barton's conduct is to suppose that he is the victim of strong delusion. If his faculties are in such a state as to allow him to believe that Mr. Justice Richmond would be guilty of what Mr. Barton there plainly charges, it seems clear that they may have played him false in all the matters that have gone before.