THE CHARLESTON CASES.

Westport Times, Volume IV, Issue 696, 11 August 1870, Page 2

THE CHARLESTON CASES.

(From the " Nelson Colonist." Justice has apparently miscarried in several instances in the Supreme Court, during the present week, or th«sre are cases which should not have been brought before that Court. Circumstantial and presumptive evidence, especially if a keen and able counsel opposes it, is not generally favorably received by a jury, and hence possibly the verdicts in the case of sheep stealing, in that of resisting the police at Charleston, and in that of the blowing up of the property of the Southern Cross claim. In each case the persons indicted may be thankful that they have escaped ; for, speaking morally, the evidence appeared to be very strong against them. It is unquestionably to be regretted fiat such outrages as that of the blowing up of the machinery of the Southern Cross Company should have taken place, and that its perpetrators should be undiscovered. A.s Judge Richmond said, the tendency of such outrages ia to deteriorate the value of the whole of the mining property on the West Coast, as capital will be difficult to find for mining enterprises if such occurrences are possible in the event of a difficulty between the mortgagors and mortgagees. We warn every man who may be disposed to take the law in his own hands to consider the evil he does to himself and his class by conduct which is really a disgrace to our civilisation, because, however hardly men may be dealt with by the power of capital, the wanton destruction of property, such as occurred at Charleston, admits of no excuse. At the same time it should not be forgotten that the men tendered the money, some £4OO (a very small sum compared with the value of the property on which it was secured) to the bank agent who refused it, and refused to remove the man in possession. Still, this by no means is an excuse for the untoward results, whoever may have produced them. The question arises, however, how is it that there is such a strong litigious spirit in Charleston ? How is it that for an assault on the police, which was of the most paltry character, and purely technical, not a blow being struck, the persons charged should be remitted to the Supreme Court, and kept in gaol for trial, when the same Magistrate, only ten day ago, dealt summarily with a case in which four men were guilty of a felony by severely beating the constables to the effusion of blood and the serious injury of their persons ? This reminds ua too of the state-

ment made by one of the police officers that John Curtayne had, as he had heard, been illegally imprisoned at Charleston, by the order of Mr Broad. The circumstances, if our memory serves us, were these, and they sprang out of the same Sonthern Cross litigation, which has been endless, and has cost no email amount of money. Some months ago Mr Broad gave judgment in favor of the wages men on the claim againHt the Bank of New Zealand as mortgagee. The bank appealed to the District Court; and by that appeal it was supposed put all action out of the hands of the Warden. The men continued working on the claim. Mr Broad served the men, six in number, including John Curtayne, with a notice ordering them to stop working. They, acting under legal advice, and believing that this was now beyond his power, refused to stop and he therefore caused them all to be summoned before him to answer the charge of disobeying a Warden's order. The men were found guilty, and Mr Broad sentenced them to a fine of £2O per man, or three months' imprisonment each. They went to gaol. Meanwhile, an appeal against this decision was lodged, and with it a deposit of £2O. A. public meeting was called the same day at Charleston to consider the conduct of the Warden in putting the men in gaol in the circumstances, while an appeal was pending. The same night, and before the meeting was held, Mr Broad liberated Curtayne and his five mates. Such is the story circumstantially narrated to us at the time, and repeated since. It gains something like verification from what passed in the Court on Tuesday. If it is correct, perhaps, the extremely litigatious character of the Court at Charleston may be accounted for; but if John Curtayne was so incarcerated and then liberated, after a three months' sentence was passed upon him, it is not to be wondered at that he should refuse going to gaol again on a warrant which he had not seen.