APOLOGISTS FOR BEASTIALITY.

Observer, Volume 7, Issue 227, 17 January 1885, Page 3

APOLOGISTS FOR BEASTIALITY.

What has come over the editor of the Wellington Evening Post of late ? Has he been disappointed of a Government billet, or has the Government advertising been reduced ? Whatever the cause, his recent vagaries have made the Post the laughing-stock of the Press of the Colony. In a recent issue the paper indulges in some silly rhodarnantade on the remarks of Mr Justice Gillies in the case of Swallow, comparing -His Honor to Judge Jeffries, because, forsooth, following up the presentment of the Grand Jury, who found ample evidence of disgusting and bestial conduct in the depositions, but technical legal loopholes which enabled the accused to escape, His Honor, in the discharge of his judicial functions, admonished Swallow and warned him against intruding himself upon respectable society. IS'ow, the very circumstances in which Swallow was arrested were sufficient of themselves, without proof of the actual commission of the abominable offence of which he stood charged, to ostracise him from respectable society, and, if anything, the strictures pronounced by Mr Justice Gillies

were top mild. That His Honor tempers mercy with justice is amply shown by his remarks in the case of Keginald B. Fitzpatrick, with reference to the duty of the prosecution and the police to facilitate^ a defence by aiding prisoners in producing witnesses. The absurd strictures in the Post furnish a striking example of the folly of writers at a distance presuming to comment on matters on which they are incompetent to foroi a correct opinion.