TREASON FELONY.

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 538, 3 August 1869, Page 2

TREASON FELONY.

The Greymouth Star thinks that the sooner New South Wales amends or abolishes her Treason-Felony Act, the better. Its operation is becoming something less than a farce, the latest instance having cropped up at Hay, in the Riverine district. It is almost incredible that the population of that important though modest township should have been on the qui vive for some weeks past, "in consequence of treason-felony having been, as was alleged, committed by two prominent persons of the town—the one a Government officer, and the other the mannager of the Joint Stock Bank at that place." At an after-dinner conversation at a hotel, the conversation happened to turn on the visit of Prince Alfred, and upon some other members of the Royal Family. A bank manager—Mr M'Gregor—let fall the expression that the Royal family were "a mean lot," and the circumstance, together with a share which tho Grovernment official had in it, were reported to the Government by one Captain Brown, the police magistrate, and who is also a retired military oiueer. The offending gentlemen were " placed under surveillance," and ultimately M'Gregor was summoned before the magistrates, who very properly declined to admit as evidence the words used at a private party, and the defendant was dismissed with a caution " not to use any language calculated to imply disrespect to the Queen, or to any member of the Royal Family." There would appear to have existed some personal hostile feeling between Captain Brown and the defendant, but that only adds to the ludicrous absurdity of the whole business.