The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE Published every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday Morning. Thursday, April 16, 1891. SOFT-HEARTED JUSTICE.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume IV, Issue 595, 16 April 1891, Page 2

The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE Published every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday Morning.

Thursday, April 16, 1891. SOFT-HEARTED JUSTICE.

Be just and fear aot; Let all the cuds thou aim’st at be thy oonutry’a, Tty God’B, &ad

The decision in the Maunsell case on Tuesday is not likeiy to increase one’s faith in the equality of the laws of the land. The more closely the case is examined the more difficult it is to account for the lightness of the punishment, if punishment it can be called. Even taking the most charitable view of the case we would have no difficulty in citing instances from the same Court, presided over by the same Magistrate, in which very different treatment has been extended to the culprits. In one case a wretched drunkard mistook a settler’s house for a country hotel, and he was promptly given three months’ hard labor. If he had been allowed the option of a fine it would have made no difference, as he was only a poor “ swagger ” without means to pay a fine. Other contrasts may be given, but it will be quite sufficient to consider this case by itself. The Magistrate described it as one of the most painful he had ever had to deal with, and the general public are likely to form their opinion of it, not so much by the evidence that came out in Court as by that which they assume has been shut out. When a man goes by stealth, into the residence of young women who had only the protection of a lad, and whose parents were absent, it is—considering that the house was some distance past his own, that it was not like his house, and that it was on the other side of the road—a kind of “ mistake ” that makes character an essential consideration. By the way the counsel for the defence shot up and objected to questions on this point conclusions of an unfavorable nature are likely to be arrived at, notwithstanding the social position of an accused person. According to the witnesses for the defence Constable Brooking must have been guilty of perjury, but the evidence went to prove a litttle too much. Leaving the Constable out of consideration, it is rather

strange that a man who was “ helplessly drunk, almost speechless,” at ten o’clock, should be able to move along so comfortably when he went over the Whataupoko. Then those boots form an important feature in the case. The accused went off without his boots, but if they had been left in the house, judging by the able way in which Sergeant Carlyon conducted the case, it would have come out in Court. Where were the boots ? If they were left in or about the house they would have been found; if they were left at some Other convenient place, the drunkenness theory is at once shattered. Oh, but the accused made grimaces, snd therefore must have been drunk. The nature of the grimaces described would suggest nothing to youisg ladies of irreproachable character like the Misses Hardy, but they are still significant. When the circumstances are considered, together with the evidence of Constable Brooking and Miss Hardy, and the probability that no decent Club would lave men “ helpless, almost speechless drunk ” about its premises, and with the time that had intervened between io and t, the only conclusion can be that the leniency shown is unexplainable. The fact that no witnesses were called to speak as to the state of the accused after it o’clock has a suspicious flavor. A man who was hclpessly drunk, almost speechless, would

not have got far by himself within an hour. The testimony of the man who was in his company when Constable Brooking saw him would have been valuable. Taking the most favorable view of the case it yet bears a very serious aspect. It means, if all culprits are to be treated alike, that any drunkard may enter the residences of women and girls (some of them perhaps invalids) while their natural protectors are absent, and after frightening them, possibly to make them subject to fits for life, get excused on the plea that it was all a mistake, made three hours after the man had been known to have been drunk. Women and children, we fancy, are more entitled to consideration than men, however well connected, who have a weakness for drink, and when “ mistakes ” of the kind are made deserving punishment should be meted out If a poor "swagger” gets three months’ hard labor in Napier gaol for such a mistake, there oughtto be some scale of punishment by which " gentlemen ” can be caught in the net of Justice. As to the questions which Sergeant Carlyon was prevented putting in cross-examination, we think that good legal opinion will be found to uphold the Sergeant.