JUSTICE IN LAWRENCE.

Tuapeka Times, Volume II, Issue 102, 22 January 1870, Page 5

JUSTICE IN LAWRENCE.

(To the Editor of the Tuapeka Times.)

Sib, — In your last issue you published a most singular freak of nature as havirg occurred at Balclutha, but I think it has been eclipsed by a still more singular freak of justice by our Resident Magistrate. On Monday last two cases of sly grog selling were brought before that wonderfully wise judge, who3e acquaintance with the laws of the land, and whose calm and deliberate bearing on the bench,, stamp him as a second Richmond, and a pattern for our rising barristers— l begyour pardon, I mean bush lawyers. If your Court reporter gives a fair and ungamished account of what tock place on Monday, the facts of the cases will appear, and be sufficiently conclusive to. prove the truth of my remarks on the even handed justice dealt out by our local potentate. But in case your reporter should fail to fairly represent the matter* or perhaps even to omit the report altogether, allow me to remark that the twocases were of an entirely dissimilar character — the one being a storekeeper in theimmediate vicinity of a licensed house,, and the other a shanty keeper several miles from any such house. In the case of the storekeeper a fine of £10 was inflicted, and in the case of the shantykeeper a fine of £20 was inflicted. How in the name of common sense this paragon of justice could iniiict the higher fine upon the shanty-keeper, the least guilty of the two, puzzles the most subtle unprofessional observer. The decision of his Worship in these cases may be law, but they are certainly not justice. Had the judgments been exactly reversed there would have been some show of reason in them, or had the fines been equal, les3 complaint could have been made ; but I'll guarantee that any schoolboy placed on the bench would have given a more equitable judgment than his Worship gave in these cases referred to. His "Worship waxed warm upon the heinou3 offence of this poor victim in taking up an acre of land, in the middle of a run, under a miners' right, and making that sacred right a shelter for the nefarious and illegal practice of sly grog selling. Taunting the unfortunate man, his Worship said, "And you are one of those who go to settle on the land, and thus convert your settlement into shanty keeping." Of course it never occurred to his Worship that such a thing as a Beaumont Hundred was in prospect when Holmes settled upon that patch of land on Maclean's run, and that it might be the hope of being able to add 40 or 50 acres to the solitary one that induced him to pitch his tent where he did, Mr. Simpson's memory was not convenient enough to supply him with that redeeming point in the case. He could not, however, surely help remembering the action his own peculiar friends took in opposing the Beaumont Hundred. It is well known that our worthy and infallible Magistrate is a squatter in a small way, in some out-of-the-way locality — of course that is private, and should not be introduced into a discussion of a public nature — and that his sympathies are naturally with the class ■which he desires to cope with. These matters, fortunately for the shanty-keeper, are known to the public, and as a proof of their appreciation of his Worship's judgment, they have started a subscription list to defray the amount of the fine, and I have no doubt this blow, which his Worship evidently thought would crush the poor man to the ground, will, after all, fall but lightly on his head. Justitia.