Serving on Juries.

Opunake Times, Volume II, Issue 53, 4 January 1895, Page 4

Serving on Juries.

-(Jhristohuch, December 80. At ifieinquest on the woman Peeke, found drowned in the Avon, W. H. Wake (one of the jurymen) arid he wished to refer to a personal matter. It had been stated to him that the eonstable who had summoned that jmy had got into trouble for havhg put him (Mr Wake) on the jiuy, rnd he wished to ask Inspector Broham, who was conducting the enquiry, whether ibis was a tact. Inspector Broham was not aware that that was an enquiry into the conduct of the police. The department might say, however, that instructions had been issued by Colonel Hume, that no person interested in the liquor businessshouldbe avowed to serve on juries, in which any question of drink was involved. Mr Wake was well known to be an extremist on the other side, and, therefore, no more eligible to give an unbiassed opinion on such enquiries. It was quite true that the constable had been reprimanded on this occasion. He might say that Mr Wake had in a manner forced himself on the jury, and it had been the case several times lately prominent prohibitionsists had come to the police and asked to be put on the coroner's J o " 63 * Mr Bishop, coroner, pointed out that if Mr Wake had any complaint to make his proper course was to communicate with the head of the department.

Mr Wake said he would like an expression of opinion from Mr Bishop, as to whether his extreme views of the temperance question made him ineligible as a juryman. Mr Bishop was 6ony to see that in many cases of death that had occurred lately the conclusion was at once jumped to that drink must have had something to do with the cause of death, and every effort was made to prove that such was the case. He saw no practical object in bringing out the fact prominently ihat a person was in liquor at the time of death, unless it Was to sheet home the blame for the person being in that condition to some one connected with the drink trade. He wished also to remark that having consulted with Mr Beetham on the point, no coroner or jury had any power to refuse to hear any evidence that anyone might wish to give.