Untitled

Colonist, Volume III, Issue 285, 13 July 1860, Page 2

To the Editor of the Colonist. MR, {now JUDGE) TRAVERS AND JUDGE GRESSON.

Sib—As the following, I believe, has never appeared in the Nelson papers, you will oblige me by finding space for it. It is extracted from the Lyttelton Times. CONSISTENCY. It was hoped by all right-think aud well-dis-posed persons that the investigation in the case of Baker and Schroder, unsatisfactory as its issue was, would have put an end to all scandal in the matter. All the evidence that either party wished to bring forward was produced, and listened to with all the attention that could have been paid. If a judgment of any kind could have been • properly come to it would have been arrived at by the twelve men who formed as intelligent, a jury as ever tried a cause, and who had all the facts of the case, such as they were, before them. That under these circumstances the judgment arrived at by some of the twelve differed so widely from that of the rest, that it was impossible to come to a unanimous decision of any kind, is sufficient to forbid those whose investigation must be made in the twilight of preconceived opinions and hearsay evidence from proclaiming any judgment of their own. Unless perchance a new trial, as full, clear, and patient as the last, should be entered upon and brought to a definite conclusion by an explicit verdict, Mr. Baker must stand in Ihe position of an unacquitted man; his friends, be they ever so high in character or distinguished in position, must not expect their asseverations to establish his character ', but his opponents may not, dare ! not, venture to pronounce an opinion of his guilt. It was not our wish even to allude to this subject again. We are convinced that we have only expressed the opinion of all impartial peisons, not only in this]province, but in that where the individual principally concerned is best known. But there is in one of the journals of that province, the Wellington Independent, of December the Ist, a letter on the subject which is calculated to do great harm, and whose writer deserves severe censure. It is signed by Mr. Travers, counsel to the plaintiff and purports to narrate the conclusion of the case, which had not otherwise reached Wellington. We reprint the letter, a paragraph only beiug omitted for the sake of brevity, in which the judge's charge is summarised. Copies of the issue | and of the verdict are annexed. It is as follows:— ( To the Editor of the Wellington Independent.) Baker v. Schbodee. Sir,—This case having excited considerable interest in Wellington, I beg to hand you a copy of the issue, and of the verdict thereon. As the wording; of the verdict might, if unexplained, lead to some misapprehension as to its meaning, I beg to give you a short summary of the concluding observationa of the learned Judge, in summing up the evidence. He undoubtedly took a very partial view of the case, his address appearing to me, and to very many persons with whom I have conversed on the subject, more in the nature of a speech for the plaintiff, than of a summary and exposition of the evidence. Where the evidence bore strongly against the defendant, his Honor gave it full effect—where it bore against the plaintiff, it was very lightly touched; and if I might judge from the demeanour of the jury, his Honor's address failed to impress them in the manner desired by hinl. * * '# * * , * The jury thereupon retired, and returning in little more than an hour, told his Honor that they had no hope of agreeing to a verdict. His Honor represented to them the serious consequences which their discharge, without a verdict must entail upou all parties, and recommended them to reconsider the matter. After about an hour's further deliberation, they agreed upon the verdict I now hand you. I may add, upon good authority, that of the jury, seven were in favor of one farthing damages, one would express no opinion as to the charge against Mr. Baker, two were for some middle course, and two were for giving him the .€SOO claimed, believing Mr. Baker to be innocent of the charge brought against him. ... ■.■-■■ :"> - I am, sir, your obedient servant, Wm Thos. Locke Teavebs. Wellington, Nov. 28,1858. This is not seemly. Mr. Travers' anxiety to be first in the field with important news, or his desire to direct the public mind towards an interpretation favorable to his client, and unfavorable to Mr. Baker, or his chagrin at the view of the case taken by the Court—whatever may have been his motive for writing as he did—he has committed therein a flagrant breach of propriety. It is not becoming in an officer of the Supreme Court to attempt to bring odium upon the conduct of the presiding Judge, even if that odium were really deserved. Mr Travers must have thought himself so far removed in Wellington from the scene which he was describing, that he should never be called to account for any liberties which he might choose to take. But Mr. Travers infringes propriety in a still greater degree when he presumes to express the sentiments of the gentlemen who composed the jury. Tie insolently asserts his knowledge that a majority of the jury were ready to give a verdict to his client, and he portions out the opinions entertained by the remainder. Mr. Travers may be right in point of fact,'or he may be wrong. We may, however, assume that he is wrong, and that his insinuation of accurate knowledge is as unfounded as it is offensive ; for we are convinced that not one of the gentlemen who sat in that box could have made the counsel on either side a confidant of his opinions, still less of those of his fellows. Mr. Travers, in his position, was the last man to have: been entrusted with any such secret; he should have been the last man. to hay* taken improper

steps to have obtained the knowledge; had he obtained it by accident ov otherwise, he should have been the last to have disclosed such equivocal information to the public; but if he never did more than guess at the conclusion he says he has good authority for stating, he has made a false statement with the view of urging the condemnation by the public of the man whom a jury refused to condemn.

Man Midwifery.—The late Sir Antony Carlisle declared childbirth to be a natural process, and not a surgical operation, much to the annoyance of the men-mid wives of that day. Dr. Dickson affirms that it too often is made a death scene by the meddlesome man-midwife; there ii not in any labour case a conceivable difficulty which a competently instructed female might not meet with as good a result as a doctor. Dr. Stevens says that for upwards of five thousand six hundred years women alone officiated at childbirth. The result of scientific man-midwifery has been greatly to increase the mortality in these cases. To say the least the practice of man-midwifery, with the post and ante visits, cannot be looked upon but as disgustingly loathsome.