WANGANUI.

Thames Star, Volume XIV, Issue 4464, 26 April 1883, Page 2

WANGANUI.

Supreme Court.

Yesterday,

Robert Moon, for carnal knowledge of a girl under 12, was acquitted; his trial lasted till 7 at night.—Phsebe Veitch, for child murder, was arraigned, and pleaded not guilty. The date of her trial is not yet, fixed.—Hota Rio, for perjury, committed in the Supreme Court in an ejectment case, will be tried to-morrow morn' ing before a Maori jury, the first of the kind in New Zealand. Mr Fitzherbert, the Crown Prosecutor, contended to-day that the Act was intended to apply only to such offences as theft or assault committed by a Maori against a Maori and not to r perjury,! where the offence is committed against the administration of the law. The Chief Justice, however, ruled that this argument too narrowly restricted the operation of the Act, and that as the person indirectly affected pecuniarily or otherwise by .the perjury might be a Maori, the prisoner's application for a native jury must be granted. His Honor went on to point out the difficulties at^ tending trials by Maori jury men, where, for example, counsel's speeches Would have to interpreted. His Honor wondered why the Legislature has made a distinction between offences committed .by a Maori against a Maori and similar of* fences by a Maori against a European, but he.presumed that those who passed the law knew all about it. He pointed out, however, that the Home Legislature had not long abolished alien juries. :