THE LATE CASE OF "SALIVA V. SLANDER."

Westport Times, Volume III, Issue 551, 7 September 1869, Page 2

THE LATE CASE OF "SALIVA V. SLANDER."

The Hokitika Star has the following comments on a case of assault which was recently heard in the Resident Magistrate's Court here, and in which John Rogers Fraser was the complainant, and George Chesswas was the defendant. Of course we give the comments simply as the opinion of a contemporary:— A somewhat curious case of assault was heard, last Friday, in the Resident Magistrate's Court at Westport, in which the judgment given by tbe Magistrate has so much of the style of the " sarve him right" verdict of a Yankee jury that it really deserves more extended notice than it has yet obtained.

\ The assault complained of was of an , exceedingly disgusting nature, was proved beyond a doubt, and yet the punishment inflicted was a fine of one | shilling, the defendant being bound over in his own recognisances to the amount of .£25 to keep the peace for three months. . . . .To account for the passiveness with which the complainant bore an assault of so provoking a nature it is necessary to mention that ho is a man far advanced in years and of feeble organization, while the defendant is a man in the vigor of life and strength. The evidence given by the complainant was fully borne out by those who witnessed the occurrence, and there was no denial set up by the defendant. All that the Court was asked by the defendant's solicitor was, to take into consideration, in mitigation of punishment, the provocation defendant had received in the slanders and unsatisfactory apology before alluded to. Doubtless the magistrate has it within his discretion in awarding punishment to take into consideration any circumstances that have led to an assault, but we question very much whether Mr J. Giles, the Eesident Magistrate at "Westport, furnished in his judgment, as reported in the Westport Times, grounds sufficient to justify him in imposing a nominal penalty of a fine of one shilling. Decisions of this nature are calculated to bring the administration of the law into contempt, and to induce a belief that any person may take the law into his own hands and obtain redress for a grievance by personal chastisement of the offender in the public streets, at the small cost of one shilling and signing a bail bond to the amount of £25 to keep the peace for three months. It is worthy of mention that, as if more plainly to mark his view of the matter, the magistrate ordered that while the costs of Court should go with the verdict, each party should pay his own counsel's fees and divide the expenses of the witnesses between them. We commend this " magisterial " decision to the attention of the AttorneyGeneral or to such other functionary in whose department the appointment of Eesident Magistrates is vested. f