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Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1213, 29 November 1882, Page 2

The verdict of Mr Price in the case of Mr Richard Finlay will give general satisfaction. There can be no doubt that Mr Finlay is innocent in intention, while there is a possibility that the cheque in question came into his hands by some means of which at the time he took no account or notice. Any one travelling the Coast road will recognise the fact, that nearly all business, be it ever so small, is transacted by cheque. Cheques are as constantly passed over public house counters on the Coast as half-crowns are here. We can remember perfectly having one cheque through our hands in four different places within two consecutive days, and although we knew where we got it we feel very doubtful whether any one of the subsequent holders but the one from whom we first received it could tell how they got it. It is perfectly possible that had Finlay balanced his cash book, or gone to extremes to ascertain how it happened that this cheque came back into his possession, he might have found out; but, again, in places like Tologa where cheques are the order of the day, where Maori’s cash as many as the white men, and where very little account, and and very rough at that, is taken of them, it is easy to receive a cheque without actually knowing who gives it to you. were Finlay a bad or doubtful character, or even an unknown man. this charge might seriously have affected him ; but he bears a character which at once places him above the supposition of lending himself to a wrong thing. From the discrepancy of the evidence we should almost doubt whether Mr Buller ever placed that cheque in his pocket-book at all. He may have never lifted it off the counter; lie may have dropped it on the floor before he left the house ; and it may have been picked up and used again without Finlay’s ever knowing it. There is not the slightest doubt that Finlay had it, but, at the same time, there is every doubt that he had it without any guilty knowledge, or felonious intent. It is a cruel position for a respectable man to be placed in, to stand in a Court and answer such a charge as this : but we can only say that it is far wiser and better that such charges should be well and patiently investigated than that they should, by being half-stifled, half-whispered, be allowed to do an undermining damage that might prove irreparable. There are very few people in this community who did not sympathise with Mr Finlay in his position, and we can say, with equal truth, that there are very few who had not made up their minds from the first that he was innocent. There is not one amongst us who did not endorse the Magistrate’s opinion that carelessness had more to do with it than criminality, and Mr Finlay has our hearty congratulations on the issue of the ease.