JURIES IN THE FAR WEST.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 465, 13 February 1869, Page 3

JURIES IN THE FAR WEST.

At a little back-woods saw-mill settlement called Alberni, Vancouver Island, an Indian had been stealing potatoes from a farm belonging to Mr Sproat, the local justice, and in order to frighten this Indian, the man in charge, who was a Western backwoodsman, fired his gun vaguely in the potato-field direction. To his astonishment he shot the native dead. An inquest had to be held. The woodmen, of course, looked upon a slain Indian as a very light affair, and several came to Mr Sproat and said : —" You are not going to trouble Henry about this, are you. sir ?" Mr Sproat, not only master, but a magistrate, had only to reply, that however much he felt for the man's misfortune, he must let the law take its course. But where was the surgeon to be found, to make a post-mor-tem examination ? A care-worn looking man stepped off a pile of lumber where he was working, and said he was a surgeon. This statement being naturally received with some hesitation, he produced from an old army chest his commission, his degree, and ample proof of not only having been a medical man, but once having been a staff surgeon. He soon produced a pea from the lung, and showed that the Indian had died from the effects of a gunshot wound in the chest. Evidence was produced in corroboration, one of the witnesses testifying that the prisoner had >aid, ' Jack, I've shot an Indian!' The 'judge' laid down their duty to the jury, which was composed of the most intelligent of the workmen, and they were sent into another room for their finding. It was nearly half-an-hour before they returned. The foreman then said, ' We find the si wash was worried by a dog.' 'A what !' The judge exclaimed. ' Worried by a dog, sir,' said another juryman, fearing that the foreman had not spoken clearly. Assuming a proper expression of magisterial gravity his worship pointed out to the jury the incompatibility of their finding with the evidence, and again went over ihe points of the case, calling particu.ar attention to the medical evidence, and the production by the doctor of the pea found in the body of the Indian ; after which he a second time dismissed the Jury to their room, and begged them to come back with some verdict reasonably connected with the facts of the case. They were away longer than before. When they at length sidled back into the room for the second time, the judge drew a paper towards him to record their finding. ' Now, men, what do you say ?' Their decisive answer was, * We say he was killed by falling over a cliff.' The judge shuffled his papers together, and told the jurymen they might go to their work, and he would return a verdict for them himself. For a full mile every way from where the dead body was found the country was as level as a table. This jury was not so conscientious as another composed of the friends of some people accused of stealing pork:—' We find the defendants Not Guilty; but we believe they hooked the pork.' "