BLIND JUSTICE.

Westport Times, Volume VIII, Issue 1199, 4 August 1874, Page 4

BLIND JUSTICE.

[WESTPORT ETENIXa STAR.] The recent and now notorious instances of a peculiar meting out of justice, so called, occurring in Eesident Magistrates' Courts, one not a hundred miles from Nelson, have been made subject of comment by the New Zealand press, and in opinion the writers have heartily concurred. They condemn the barbarism of the law which, instead of punishing the real offender, sanctions, under trivial circumstances, the lockiug-up of an unoffending complainant because of his or her inability, or unwillingness, to comply with the stern provisions of the law. The Otago Daily Times summarises the incidents of each case, showing in one, how a husband, disapproving, apparently, of his wife's conduct, endeavored to bring her to a sense of what was due to him by the drastic process of stabbing her twice in the back. And how the wife, after laying complaint, was moved by compunctuous visitings, and refused to give evidence against him, whereupon her contumacy, and constancy of love for her tyraut, was rewarded by herbeiugcommitted to gaol for twentyfour hours. In the other, a relic of genuine Saxon savagery is illustrated. The stabber is committed for trial. A daughter was eyewitness of the little conjugal difficulty under consideration, and her evidence was necessary to complete the case. Ifor some reason or other, both mother and daughter are required to give a bond for their appearance at the Supreme Court, which will not sit for months. The poor creatures are penniless and friendless, not a soul will go kail for them; so not only the wife, but the innocent daughter, is lodged in the common gaol, where, at this present time of writing, she still lies, a living example of the sins of the fathers being visited on their children. Thus the brief incidents, and now the just remarks of the censor. " The blindfold old goddess Justice must, it seems, be satisfied, no matter at what cost to the helpless and the innocent But surely it would be well worth the while of some of our legislators to try if the bandage cannot be raised a little from her eyes in this and some other particulars. The man who would take lip as his speciality the altering and humanising of the laws which bear so hardly upon the friendless and the destitute—laws which, though the force of public opinion usually compels them to be mercifully administered, should no longer be allowed to disgrace the statutebooks—would deserve well of his country. Let him begin by rendering impossible the repetition of brutalities that may still be perpetrated under colour of enforcing the Vagrancy Act. Xet him see that so monstrous an insult be no longer offered to poverty as the looking up of an unoffending witness merely because the wretched man cannot find a friend to become surety for his appearance Let him go among the very poor, hear what they say among themselves about these things, and cease to wonder at their want of respect for the law. We can promise such a one the support of every rightthinking man of every class, aud, if be

cares for it, as ample and as well deserved a meed of popularity as has fallen to tho lot of Mr Luimsoll, without the risk of an action for libel."