The Waikato Times. THURSDAY, MAY 23, 1878.

Waikato Times, Volume X, Issue 923, 23 May 1878, Page 2

The Waikato Times.

THURSDAY, MAY 23, 1878.

Equal and exact justice to all men, Of whatever state or persuasion, religious or Dolitical. *- * * * * Here shall the.Press the People's right maintain, '■ f., ■" ■■-■ Unawed'by influence and unbribed by gain-

The case of'Mr Thomas Jolly, a settler of Hamilton, cannot bub be of interest to every sheep-owner m Waikato. For some time past, Mr Jolly has drafted oufc w6ekly a consignment of sheep for tbe Auckland market, sending them by railway to Messrs Hunter and Nolan for sale. On the last occasion, when exposed for sale, one of these sheep attracted the attention of the Sheep Inspector for tho Auckland district, Mr Lewis, who at once pronounced it infected with scab. Mr Jolly was summoned fora breach of the Sheep Act to Auckland. Expert witnesses were called on both sides — those of the one side swearing positively that the sheep was scabby, those of the other as positively that it, was not, and counsel entered into lengthened and learned disquiitiopß;' pn scab m sheep, its causes, its' symptoms, and ■ effects. The magistrates presiding, who are not

of necessity presumed to be learned m BtjoLmaJjtei's. lnid doubtless a hard gJj^BpPssQme^tfr a judgment upon 1 evidence. " Who gj^-when doctors disagree >v ife J^Kbta the aptness of which lpu^jhai 1$ -struck Mr Barstow wheM list to the evidence of M.v Grphjprs shepherd Fergasson,for •jih^pj^pcation, and to that of Mr Short, of Orakau, for the defence. Bub really the evidence of experts *was?sbeside.' ;the ? .-qneßtion^-aty issue.* It would be but a master of opinion. Ihe chief witness was neVer^pufciii-the box and examined ;;. tfoej f>ps) could ,-havp solved alll doubt, and given oscular demonstration of "scab or no scab, tb^e 1 actual' skiii of the anMal alleged to have been infected was not submitted to judicial examination. A sorfc'of>.priyate ; exa^na#on^ a3 held of it during the adjournment of th'e .Opyrt; ati /which; ; prosequtor; and defendant, .th'e, lawyers, the several [ sheep inspectors and some of tb!e* . witnesses 1 ' were, ■ > arid Mr Jolly's counsel then and there agreeU to allow his* 'clients' case to stand or fall on the fact as to whether the prdsebution' could or could not find evidence of the presenceof insects m the's^ini ! This/'nbweVer^ 'the prosecution refused to do. Prosecutor was forced to admit that the skin the same one, for he had Ipedialiy] njarked/ it) and tho /mark ..was, there j but though he and those* present minutely ; examined the skin,' npt the sign,, of/an insect; could be found. This took placed but' of court, and ; was of course nofc ? evidience ; but it adds to the moral 0 certainly that the charge of scab was founded on a mistake. All outside, evidence points to. this ; one conclusion. 1 It -is two -years' since,,,..,- Mr Jolly new slieep'; his flocks "were examined by the Waikato Sheep Inspector, Mr Runciman, a year ago, and passed as clean j he has never had; occasion to treat any of his sheep for" scab ;' never ' known the disease to be aoaonst . thpni. In November last at sheading tl^ae the sheep were all branded, so that the ewe alleged the other day to hajrc, been scabby, which bore the brand, could not have beej^a^straggfer subsequently picked up by his floct ; and now again on :the;£thjof .May!, a fortnight after the so called scabby sheep was sent to Auckland, Mr Runciman has again inspected the flock, arid given Mr Jolly a clean certificate. 'Hie faefc is, as we all know here, Mr Jolly ; has been most unfortunate for sometime past with his flocks. In August last a number were killed, and many wounded by ; dogs, and there is scarcely a month passes but one or more of his tlieep are more or less woriied by dogs -from jthe township,^ That the affection of the skin was not the result of scab but of the some other cause such as , a wound , received by the bite of a dogi is evident from ariother 'circumistance that a short growtli of wool wa? grooving hgain upon it, and this would not have beeivjthe case with, BC.ab, , .. The case -is oi;e which affects our settlers largely. No man is safe m sending sheep to market if m a case of disputed' disease such as this, he is to run a chance of bein^ mulcted m -a sum (-■' of £20 for fine and costs- besides other expenses of quite as large an amou»fc and taken away for days from his business to attend to his case. Of what use are the sei vices of our own local Inspector of sheep if a clear quittance from him will not bear a sheep farmer harmless. The case, as it at present stands, is a somewhab pecnliar one, Mr Eunciman granted Mr Jolly it clean certificate for his sheep .within the last three weeks, but the law' has decided that Mr Jolly V flocks were infected at a few day's anterior date. Will«the Inspector stand by his certificate or order the sbeepowner to dip them, as required by the Act — nay more,, if Mr Jolly's sheep are infected so, too, must be those of some two or three other ftockownera we could name, whose sheep have mixed with his on both sides the. river. Of course no one here believes it was scab at all, and no apprehension will be felt on that scare. The,-very fact that the case was said .by the proselion to have been a bad and longstanding brie, a oreaking out again of imperfectly treated scab, shows that it was altogether a misconception on the part of the prosecution, for the simple reason that the flock has been always clean, and never treated for scab. If on the other hand the prosecution had shown or endeavoured to show that it was disease m an incipient stage then we could have understood that there might have been somV cause for apprehension, that ,thei disease had been perhaps brought to the .flock by some straggler, or had been caught fiom the railway truck even, or from some other source since the last inspection and shearing; but the fact that the damage to the skin waa of long standing is all m favour of the assumption that it wns nofr caused by j scab. The case is one which will be 1 read ' with interest by country .settlers, as showing what may hap- | pen to a man attempting to dispose iof the produce of his form. The draft of condemned sheep were sold for little more than half their value, and the money cost of the action, we are informed, has been . little shor> of : £SO. , "Virgil certainly had no case of scab m his mind wjien he wrote of the joys ,of farming O nimium jortunati ay'icdl si suahona norint!

Thr first fruits of' the impending' war m Europe have already been gathered m New- Zealand. The telegram from Wellington, which we publish elsewherei®: a matter of VHSt v andjpserious^tfrnDßrfc 4*|}%the^ colonM JrWffi||her oiijjtt theifp^ny'. real cffhe, dm? mn^^specMly^inL the foffT i ofUllra telefei** 111 " 1 °W^:P a^% lished Mfjjfrn Sio#uliiffi| Yo^el, for the Government t(T suppose that they will bo unable to *floaWt/he f «loan r ™or *~wJietheiw*tbe,> announcement ps resoyted, to Y/ as a means of 'wiping "out %i a« siftgie' satrolie-the-mult>itude-of"promisesion-whlqn Jtjjpeyl 'pS^ived^diitlMSHrished • sinc*e 'tnrts&l^of TJW Memb^i would be hard to say. This muoli we-j I^4 t£^ j Wa-- Ridden stdj[)p%e 'of ? the 'public Mirorks of the colouy cannot but re-act most injurioußly upon every' iuteresti. ; Directly and indirectly every part of 'the colony Will' suift- r. "VYevery mucl^fear that the extension of th^ Mine h-om^OlU upo ' io Te \A.wani|tii' will be included with othei 1 workb more fairly uchargeable ;againsfc the new loan, although thevo should be a sufficienfe balance of the ICiiiparaPuniu railway vote iq carry out the undeytaking. The £40,000 vote for roads m the North Island is another grant which the settlei'3 will never realise.' A short time since when the Hamilton Borough Conncil wrote ■ requesting* to know vvhat sh^e of it?the^imight look for, jihjej reply was^ that, except m the iin&tauce of Wangamarino Bridge, a ||ise of great emergency, no portion fQ^iti had been expended b~e*qajHse as iS ii» Vwas cha,rgeable upon the*" loan Government were at present un--1 willing to operate upon the ; vote. Whether the Government take a correct view of the effects of a European war upon Colonial securities is, perhaps, after all, open to doubt. At any rate from latest advices it would seem that Colonial securities are still as firm as they have ever been. Money must have an outlet for investment, and m such times .much of the Continent" of Europe is closed to safe speculation. .-...■ , -