THE Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR O'CLOCK P.M. Resurrexi. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1877.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2525, 8 February 1877, Page 2

THE Evening Star. PUBLISHED DAILY AT FOUR O'CLOCK P.M. Resurrexi. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 1877.

To-day closed the last of the monthly sittings of the District Court, which, instead of being held once a month as formerly, .will only be held four times more during the present year. The inconvenience of this arrangement is obvious. It may lighten the work of the judge, but the question is whether it N is to the advantage of the public to have only five sittings of the District Court during a period of twelve months. It must be v remembered that there are cases which cannot be heard before the [Resident Magistrate, but must come before the District Judge. Surely, if the District Court is worth having at all, it ought to sit more than once in every ten weeks. The phrase " The law's delay," has been proverbial since the time when the play of Hamlet was written; but this last step in the matter of our District Court seems calculated to make these said delays even worse than before. We know that very oftenfrom various causes cases have to be adjourned from one sitting of the Court until the next, and sometimes these 1 adjournments occur two, and even three times before they are settled ; in fact, to-; day a case was heard which had been adjourned twice. Thus, then, under the present law it might easily happen that a case set down for hearing on the 19th of April next might not be heard until November, the last sitting of the present year, leaving the defendant, if innocent, with all the anxiety and worry of a law suit hanging over him; if guilty, giving him a chance so to settle what property he may have that in the event of an adverse judgment his opponent will have the bare consolation of proving himself in the right, but as far as payment is concerned will find himself as far from it as when the action first commenced. Besides this he has, probably, been put to the expense, arid it may be ; inconvenience of coming to the Thames time after time only to perform the same journey at the end of another ten week? with, perhaps, the same result. We certainly think the change in the sittings of the District Court is one for the worse, and very much for the worse too, as calculated to cause great inconvenience to the public; the only person benefited being the district judge, who will have to make five journeys from Auckland here instead of twelve in the year.