NAPIER.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume II, Issue 115, 20 December 1873, Page 2

NAPIER.

[from our own correspondent.]

December 6. The chief event of the past week, and the one that has engrossed the principal share of conversation, has been the committal for trial, at the next criminal sitting of the Supreme Court, of the four proprietors, the publisher, and editor of the Daily Telegraph newspaper for the alleged libelling of the Crown Lands Commissioner. These six gentlemen are all old colonists, and are well known to every body in Hawke’s Bay; the prosecutor is also well known, and has been before the public for years past in some prominent private or official character or other; it is not surprising therefore, that their appearance before a Bench of Magistrates on Friday last caused some sensation. As might have been expected, the Court was crowded. The defendants pleaded “ not guilty,” and the evidence of the Crown Lands Commissioner and that of his clerk was taken, which occupied the time of the Court from 11 a.m. till nearly 4 p.m., when the Bench decided to send the case for trial in the Supreme Court. It was the subject of remark that the sitting Justices were brother-in-law of the ’prosecuting counsel, the ex-Waste Lands Commissioner, an ex-Collector of Customs, a Custom House officer, a large landed proprietor, and another gentleman who, report hath it, would not be averse to a Civil Service appointment. Such a constituted Bench was the more remarkable inasmuch as Mr. Sealy, the prosecutor, had stated publicly in the Police Court that for the "honor of the Civil Service it was incumbent upon hint that he should take legal proceedings against the Daily Telegraph. After the attack on the Crown Lands Commissioner there was no other course for him to pursue, and in the interests of the public service it was one which could not have been avoided, nor was there the slightest disposition shown on the part of the defendants to shirk any of the responsibility which attached to their conduct. December 13. The criminal sittings of the Supreme Court commenced on Monday, the Bth, the Grand Jury returning true bills to all the indictments. There was but one case of any interest to your readers,that of the horse shooting by Mr. Fraser. For full particulars I must refer you to the published reports. Napier is at length to have a Court House, tenders having been called for its erection : the building is to be completed by the 16th June next. Unfortunately the Genera! Government only placed £3,000 on the estimates for the purpose, and the consequence is the Court House will not be nearly so commodious as the necessities of the province require. No provision has been made for a Magistrate’s Court, and the accommodation (according to the plans) for the public, will not prove half enough. At the same time the building will be very ugly, being of a non-descript architectural design, something between an Italian villa and a New Zealand wool shed. The site for this tasty erection is, I hear, to be between the Athenaeum and the sea beach; I presume in a line with the Club. I have heard of a piece cf good news for

Poverty Bay. It is that the Auckland Steam Packet Company purpose placing the s.s. Star of the South as a regular trader between Auckland and Napier, callingat Gisborne. The manager of the company is now here, with the object of disposing of a portion of the unallotted shares. Perhaps few undertakings of joint stock associations have been more successful than those of this company ; and from the ability and enterprise they have displayed, the utmost confidence ean be placed in their operations being conducted with benefit to the public and profit to themselves. An artesian well has been sunk close by the site of the future Napier railway station, and such a splendid flow of water has been obtained that hopes are once more entertained that this town will some day be supplied with clean wholesome drinking water. The Artesian Well Company—that last year promised to do such great thing’s—is again going to do something towards utilising the well that was sunk in Dickens-street, the pipes of which, it is supposed, were driven below the water-bearing stratum before the plug was knocked out. This morning, Mr. Fraser, of Poverty Bay, at the adjourned sitting of the Supreme Court, came up for judgment. Several gentlemen spoke highly of his character and antecedents, but the Judge, in passing sentence, said that the crime Fraser had committed was of un atrocious nature, and one which it was necessary should be severely punished. Mr. Fraser was sentenced to nine months imprisonment. Much sympathy is felt for him. The libel case came on for hearing, and occupied the time of the Court till ,7 p.m., when it was adjourned till Monday. The evidence of the Commissioner’s clerk (Mr. W. Parker), was taken, and that of the Crown Lands Commissioner, both of whom were subjected to a long and searching cross-examination. It transpired that the Commissioner, in the exercise of his magisterial duties, was often absent from the Lands Office, when the important post of Commissioner was filled by the lad Parker; that no correct lime was kept in the office; that tracings of maps of blocks of country attached to two applications had been torn off, and different ones pasted on ; that this irregularity had been discovered, and the mutilated tracings re-attached—-these were produced in Court-; —that an application for over 20,000 acres had been surveyed in blocks of a triangular shape, and had been gazetted for sale in that form; that the Commissioner’s attention hud been culled to it, when the land was re-surveyed and a fresh gazette notice appeared. Mr. Cornford, for the defence, made his opening address, and produced a most favorable impression. Mr. Cornford is very young, but he has been brought up in a good school; he speaks to the point, in a quiet, gentlemanly and forcible manner. On Monday morning Mr. Lee, on his own behalf, will address the Court, after which the witnesses for the defence will be called. The case is likely to last the whole of Monday.