AT THE BAR.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VIII, Issue 2361, 31 July 1886, Page 2

AT THE BAR.

(Tht Mdbwm Daily it is olio of the best of axioms that it) order to understand the people, their' wants, their aims, their aspirations, you must mix with them, and of a sense be of them. Yet how many, for instancy of our well-to-do, prosperous community even pause to think of the paiu «id anguish of the hundreds who are called upon daily, either from tho stem necessity of the law's behests, or from swue tie of oonsanguitiifcy or friendship fy appear before our most important tern pies of justice, the polico "courts. TSe history of our police courts, could it eve? be written in full, would, from every point of view form a most fascinating tome fur the lovers of sensational likejature. Nor would the historian have to confine himself to tlyi criminal side alone in drawing on the pastforhis are the brilliantlegal lighUwtfflfeenksw have lit up those dull walls wiffl the fire of their passion, the brilliancy of their wit, or the poignancy of their safe ? Where the equal of Sewoll, Falley, Ireland, Dawson, Aspinall? Men who, & spore of years ago, held crowds of eager listeners for hours togothcr hanging ou their slightest utterance. On these later days it has become the fashion to (s&sry police-court practice as somewhat dSogatorv to the dignity of the bar, but never-the-losa such eminent practitioners m Dr Madden, Mr Purvos, and Sir Bryan, O'Loghlen may be seen there on occasions of serious import., and it is no. secret that the present Attonoy-Gflnefal. and Solicitor-General of Victoria botfc won the spurs which may yet lead to. knightly honors within the dingy walls of our police courts. In thoir initial stages-, the magistrate deals with evory case of importance that comes before the pubji*.. For instance, fow of the roadors of tki* article can have forgotten tho history of the Ferret case-ono of tho most extraordinary ever heard of in tho world's; history, not even oxcopting the marvellous exploits of Captain Kidd, and the other buccaneers of the good M times; bocause in the old sea rovor's ssß there wero no telegraphs or inconvenient things of that sort to play high jinks with th« post laid schemes of man and mice. But m the face of all those modern improvements tho steamer Ferret was obsofotely stolen from an English company and nwf. J?atud round the world to the port of Melbourne, whore, through the folk of the perpetrator of the crime, they apprehended and brought to justieo, and :ire now expiating their offences iu P<j>tndge That was one of the remarkablo cases o.vor heard in any court "■ in tho woiid-ulniout as remarkable afed astounding as the preliminary eni|iury into the great West Coast outrages in New Zealand, tie Kinder Murder cosh in Sydney, or the story of the doings of Mount and Morris amongst tho natives of the South Seas. These n» only instances of the most notorious- of. the cases which have come before the police-courts, and have gone thonse to< highop courts for final dwisioti. AU of theso, from the great variety of the*nature and the great difference of their' degree, will show the amount of wo»k which the officials of the ■ police cou# have to perform throughout the whole ofthe Colonies; and then can beA doubt that they are excellently wePnannrt and conducted. All the officials we trainod specially for tho different brandies of their work, under the w&lit of which many of them tucciimb toThe ills which flesh i». heir to. Such $ one was the messongor to the- Melbourne courts, Mr Richard Capper, a gentleman m the vory prime of life, ai hi aa age is concerned, and' as well' knoife, for his long connection with the courts!? from tho fact that his father, who has but just paid the debt of nature, was a companion of Favkuer and Batman. Capper tan. was so'remarkable for an fton constitution and an iron nerve that it is no* matter of-wonder-that his son's friend should, some two years ago, have noticed him dwindling to a mere shadow vitk feelings of the-moat profound aetqnhhment and grief. Celebrated erstwhile for the liveliest of spnits and the keenest of rejwrfce, Jio bocatye gradually changed to a rtioroseV melancholy wanuttorly indifierarft to anything about him, and as he himself used to.express it, "inUilißront much whuther he lived or died. «*«i«! daily pain hp had to endure wa* "'"•aiian hntuan.nature could endure T He consulted every known medicflLu within a radius of 6fty imles of Geeloiwj niMt famods of wo called in-the best of the doLX the faculty m Melbourne, all havinr known his father and himself for I generation, rallied round him, sounded nun, diagnosed his case, and, to a Ha, agreed that he was very, very ill; thafe he was sufferine from the very vows talL

of kidney disease, combined with most .'.':.•.. -serious kidney trouble; and that, well—- »". Vcbomje of air, change of scene, and cessation from the active duties of hia office «iif(/i'--w , «ll then would. follow thu usual' profound shako of the hoad, tho deprecatory shrug of the shoul- . ■ •■. dors, the uplifting of the eyebrows, which . to. tho patient means the sentence of death. One doctor advised, as a last resource a sojourn by the sea-side, •a'ribflier a sojourn to tho country, but ' still "Capper held on to his post, his sufferings increasing daily, until at last, he announced his intention to his then medical attendant of obtaining six month's ■ :. leave of absence, sutliat' ho might follow V thfl advice of his many advisors if it were possible to to do so. " Tako six months' loavo of absonce by all means, if you think it will do you any good; but you'll be in the cemetery before that time is half over, my dear fellow," were tho cheering words Capper took with him to the seaside, and from thence to the very heart of Gippaland. But he grew worse and worso, his body racked momentarily by pain, he fell almost to a shadow, and it . . is no wonder that his family and all his friends came to look upon the doctor's dictum as final, and that he hiinsels almost longed to fall into that sleep which j. ' knows no waking. While destitute of ta' hope and a prey to despair, feeling that ;.,. .• if he trusted to the doctors much longer ho must die from sheer exhaustion unless some prompt measures were taken to Bavo his life, he fortunately saw the advertisement of Warner's safe cure, and resolved, just as those who are drowning see one glimpse of light before they sink fcr over into the waters of oblivion, to aba it a trial, although he was dissuaded from doing so by his medical advisers and others who regard all proprietary metliI cines with sußpecion, The result of Mr Capper's experiment may be best told in his own words to an old friend of his : "Yousaw mo before I took Warner's safe cure, did you not ? And you thought I was going to die, eh ?" " Well, to tell you the truth, I would'nt have given a farthing for your life. You were yellow with bile, feeble, jworn, and eliminated; and now, honestly, you are us healthy a man to look at as any in the country!" " And so I am, thanks to a merciful Providence and Warner's safe euro. You see I wa3 so very ill, and- so noar death, as all the doctors told me, that when 1 went in for the cure, I determined on sticking to it, and following implicity the instructions given with each bottle as to dietary, etc. This I have done; and although I have only taken twenty bottles, I am as sound a man as any of my age in Melbourne. And yet jm you remembor as well as I do, that the V' doctors told mo I had not six months to w»ep, or that if I went away for a holiday of that period I would not come backalive." Theso are the .words taken from Mr Capper's own lips by a disinterested . friend of his within the last week. They H are words that need no comment in our W hands, and they only go .to show that there are stranger things happenim; daily in our midst than those whieh the published records of the police-courts thomselves disclose.