PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY & SATURDAY. Saturday, July 9, 1881.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume IX, Issue 958, 9 July 1881, Page 2

PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY & SATURDAY. Saturday, July 9, 1881.

Ik making a few remarks on the case Nolan v. Scott, heard in the Resident Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday morning last, we must be understood to do so, without the slightest desire to “ make things right” between the parties, but merely to draw attention to one or two points which arise therefrom. As expounded by Mr. Price, the law of social distinctions is very subtle; indeed, we might go further, and say invidiously distinctive, so much so that one is not always sure where respect ends and disrespect begins. The case to which we refer is simply this : Two gentlemen (we discard the degrees of conventionalism, in the belief that every man is a gentleman who behaves as such) who are in the habit of meeting not only daily, but many times during the day; who have business transactions, and who are, generally speaking, in each other’s confidence —- meet, by accident, in a public hall. Me. Nolan (we really believe in jest, at the time) said, in reply to a remark from Mr. Scott, that he could not recognize him in respectable society. Ue knew him as a bookmaker, and as a billiard-marker, but, beyond that, the acquaintance did not extend. According to the evidence it. appears that this galling remark was made in the hearing of several persons, including ladies, and others who knew Mr. Scott, and was repeated

by Mr. Nolan in the witness box, as an expression to which he adhered, and which he did not wish to qualify by any subsequent regret, Mr. Scott, not wishing to retort in kind, and on the spot, and out of pUre respect for the company he was in, subdued his resentment until he haojpn opportunity (some two hours after) of telling Mr. Nolan “ a bit of his mind’’ in his own billiard-room. lie told Mr. Nolan he was a d—— d cad, and no gentleman, and used other- expressions of a like nature, which were

called forth under the exasperated state of his feelings. The result is known. But this is what puzzles us : —The scientific distinction that fines one man ten shillings for calling another “ a d d cad,” while the other who provoked the replication by stating that he was not fit for “respectable society,” is let go free? We are not narrowing this down to an altercation as between any two recognised individuals ; although their names are before the public. We desire to treat the matter on the broad and square platform of principle, quite irrespective as to who the parties are. Therefore, we stop to require an explanation of the subtle distinction made by Mr. Price. Mr. Price said Mr. Scott had time to cool down ; therefore, his language to Mr. Nolan was unjustifiable ; but if Mr. Scott had replied to Mr. Nolan at the time, it would have been an extenuating fact. The only inference to be drawn from the Magistrate’s decision is that Mr. Nolan’s insult to Mr. Scott was, if not justifiable, at least of minor importance to that offered to Mr. Nolan. We differ. Public opinion differs. Common sense is against such a theory. A man, smarting under the recollection of unmerited insult, can: not let “ the matter coolhe must “ have it outand Mr. Scott, we are sure Mr. Price will admit, paid a large deference to the “ respectable ” society in which he was at the time, in not giving vent to expressions whose necessary equivalent of quality would have been offensive to others than the person for whom they would be intended. Rather than show he did not know how to comport himself as a gentleman, he wisely, and most judiciously, not to say generously, waited for an opportunity more appropriate for what he had to say. As far as justification is concerned, both rigidly speaking, were in the wrong ; but the great philosophical teaching of our judicial ministers is what transcends ordinary, and even extraordinary understanding. And we certainly bow in humble submission to the, genius which can distinguish between a precisely similar insult given to one man in a public hall, and one given to another in a billiard-room.