Poverty Bay Standard. Published Every Wednesday & Saturday SATURDAY, MARCH 12, 1881.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume IX, Issue 925, 12 March 1881, Page 3

Poverty Bay Standard.

Published Every Wednesday & Saturday SATURDAY, MARCH 12, 1881.

“ JFe shall sell to no man Justice or Right ; “ Weshall'deny fp no " shall fafrrjp no man Justice pr Right?

ThE adage “ Speak qf a man as you find him ’’is one pregnant with alarge amount of philosophy. It arms qne against thejineursions of petty feelings, whiph may be prompted either by vindictive or interested? motives.. It fortifies one in the discharge of his duty; and r ft ii a safe guarcF against the influences pf bigo.try and prejudice. Such, hitherto, has been the motor power of our thought,, in regard to the decisiops of our, worthy Resident Magistrate,, Mr. Matthew Price. Sucn, ih< feed, is it how ;* but', we regret the position is forced upon us, of having to write upon a deed of separation as between the past and the, present. Circumstances alter, cases. Hitherto we have, looked upon Mr. Prick as a man whose ruddy glow of experience placed him in the foremost rank of those whose iron will, and unbending firmness, would hot allow them to yield to feeling or sentiment, We have held him aloft in our. estimation as a kind of official rara avis ; as one on whom no local circumstance, take effect, as tocai^M&.to9o^h4 ) ‘? n ;W en an d things at an oblique angle of vision as One who; having mastered the arithmetic by which the sums of/ifis judgments wpre worked similar cases r apply the, same, rule, B ut, al as for things. mundane ! We are mistaken. Our judgment is at fault; and, immaculate as we desire to esteem some men, we find that there is no unerring rille to keep them unswerved and uninfluenced by the passing prejudices of the<time.

On more than one occasion — and certainly on a notable one —Mr. Price has laid it down most fundamentally, - that “ human nature ” was very likely to be provoked into a breach of the law; and he could well understand how a skit in a newspaper —which might, inferentially, reflect on any one person — would “rankle in the mind of a gentleman,” and so palliate, if not justify, a commission of a breach of the peace on account of it. We allude now, firstly, to the assault case Webb v. Fraser ; secondly, to two others of a similar nature, Finch v. Nepia ( and, lastly, to Tucker v. Ward, reported in this issue. There are few of our readers, acquainted with ; the particulars-in each case, whOiwiU not agree with us on the wide dissimilarity both of the circumstances leading to the.assaults, and to the consequences thereof.

It has been an article of Mr. Price’s faith, and one to which he recently, most pointedly alluded, that Magistrates’, decisions are held to be ; inscrutable, inasmuch as the Magistrates base their judgments rather on the • surrounding circumstances ” of a crime, Ahaai on.the .essence, or gravamen, of the crime itself. Indeed, Mr. PBpcE,, qqite, careful that he should not be misunderstood, repeated that dogma on Thursday last, in his judgment in Tucker v. Ward, He said if two paen,“whose* other actions life harmbpisqdj, With .fistipp^s, 7 disagreed, say in the, bar of a public? house, and one was determined to “take it oiit ” of the other—men whose education,did not teach them better — he /could understand the offence not tq be. of so,- seripus; ;a character as where two gentlemen, one a barrister, and-the other a Justice of the Peace, engaged in that sort of thing, in the public.street. Mr. Price added, very properly, that; the education and position of the offender,, in. such, latter case, should teach him bettpn But may we not stop to enquire where 3infulne>9 .of. ignorance ends,, and where the of education begins ? An artisan, who is assaulted tn an hotel-bar, and, he noW WW’’. Wf*®^* 1 * the samejamount. of .protection as due

of of a.right,hoqqra|)le Profession? We do hot hay that Mr. 'rice thinks otherwise; but it is very certain .thßt,^er“.surrpunding.circumstapgje” doctrine, he ’ the, Magisterial office,, under, , causes an overweightingjnthe Scales of Justice, not in accordance with the principles of Equity which Justice should ever cultivate.

Let us take the cases, to which we haye already alluded, seriatim. They might be put suppbsrHtiously, but as Truth and Fact require no bush to hide in, we prefer to ddal with Truth and Faet. In giving judgment in the assault case of Webbv. Eraser, these were the words used by Mr, Price, (and which were noted at the time): — “ The law does not allow any man to “assault another, however great the “ provocation may be ; but it is only “ human nature for one to resent an in- ; suit f and I must say that when an “ article appears in a newspaper, re- “ fleeting on any person’s credit or “character—although'he could not “ claim that as a justification for as- “ sault-t-it must rankle., in the mind “ of a gentleman, and he naturally “ seeks revenge at the first opportu- “ nity,” Here was a case in which a “ gentleman,” with something “rank- “ ling in his mind,” accosts an ostensible offender in a private club room ; insults Kim ; assaults him; and, because (of the . said offender’s profesision in life teaching him to observe the duty of example as well as pre-, cept) he refuses to descend to the level of blackguardism, and “fight it out,” the gentleman” makes/ a cowardly onslaught pn him, and, unawares, inflicts such physical, punishment as incapacitates the victim from that amount of self protection which, in such cases, the law itself allows. We venture to say .that a more cowardly and vicious exhibition of one-sided brutality was never witnessed; and yet Mr. Price said that “ human nature ” had a good deal to do with the case; and he held to so much of the emolient of justification as to emphatically declare that, although the Complainant had been most mercilessly maltreated, “he “ thought the circumstances of the “ case would be met by the infliction “ of forty shillings and costs.”

Now let us turn to Tucker v. Ward. Two gentlpmen, not on friendly terms, meet each other in the street, and, after the interchange of certain questions, the one aims two or three blows at the .other, and so ineffectively, as that the offended party considered himself .more.insulted than assaulted. Mr. Tucker said he suffered from no personal violence; and he did not fear a repetition of the offence. But what view does Mr. Price take of what Mr. Finn described as a most trivial affair ? He opens his book ; he takes his text; and preaches a dreary homily for exactly twenty four minutes by Gisborne clock, on the enormity of the offence ; and, forgetting what his previous utterances were, said “ The counsel “ for the defence had introduced the “ element of ‘ human nature ’ into the “ palliation of the offence ; but I must “ say that I can take no notice of “ that; The law takes no cogni- “ zance of human nature, men should “ learn to keep themselves under con- “ trol. Lean well understand two men “in an inferior condition of life, “ quarrelling in a public house bar, “ and pile s ‘ tailing it out of. the other;’ “ or where a man is called by an op- “ probrious epithet, he, in hot blood, “ strikes a blow, on the instant, there “ might Ke an element of provocation ; “ but as to justification, I will not “ hear of suqh a thing. If a man has “ a grievance, and time to reflect, the “ law provides a remedy, and he has no “ right to take the administration of “ that law into his own hands. I look “ upon the offence before me as of a “ most serious nature, and feel bound “ to inflict what may appear to be a “ heavy penalty.”

The assault in which Finch was patriotically engaged was, of course, anotJmr fliatter. He only knocked fensive and unoffending Maori woman,

who had the. audacity fq speak tjo him while buy.ing some fish; in the street. For any ( man to any woman, unless undqr vqry aggrayating circumstances, which, do not often, occur, is generally held tp be a most cowaruly act; and if the lady assaulted had been an European the penalty' would have been proportionate to the “ surrounding circumstances ;” but as it was only a “ Maori; woman,” the; penalty yas forty shillings, and costs. ’The' three degrees of comparison could not have been better exemplified. First: The, positive. One man, after waiting four days for revenge,, knocks another down, unawares, and “ hammers ” him unmercifully while on the ground; and is fined forty shillings and costs. Second: The comparative. A woman is knocked down in the street, without provocation, and the offender is fined forty shillings and costs ; this offence — according to the degrees of comparisons which should teach men how to respect women —being the worse of the two. Third: The superlative. One man “ whiffs ” his hand in the other’s face. No blows “ tell,” or “go home,” and a,fine of £5 and costs is inflicted, because the “ surrounding circumstances,” we suppose, warrant it. So much for Mr. .Price. He is a yery good Magistrate; and, we dare say, his own inner consciousness is quite satisfied with the result in all these cases. But are the public ? Is public justice ? Do the “ surrounding circumstances ” in each case bear testimony to the equableness of the penalties? Mr. Price’s own argument is against this view. Theoretically, ;in his sermons, he preaches the virtue of abstention from physical force ; but he lets off lightly the man who succeeds most in punishing his victim, even in cold blood, and in the most cowardly and bull dog-like manner. So much for the “ surrounding circumstances” doctrine by which Magistrates arrive at their decisions.