THE Inangahua Times. PUBLISHED TRI-WEEKLY. FRIDAY, APRIL 2, 1880.

Inangahua Times, Volume II, Issue II, 2 April 1880, Page 2

THE Inangahua Times. PUBLISHED TRI-WEEKLY. FRIDAY, APRIL 2, 1880.

In delivering judgment recently, in a case in the District Court here, his Honor Judge Weston made Borne remarks relative to the duties and functions of the ponce in regard to prosecutions for sly-grog celling, which in the interest of the force, no less than that of the public generally de*serve more extended publicity than they have yet received. The case was an appeal from & decision of the Eesis dent Magistrate, in the suit of police v. Aiken, in which the defendant was charged with a breach of the Licens* ing Act, by vending liquors without a license. In the .Magistrate's Court the charge was sustained and the defendant fined in. the sum of £30, and against this decision an appeal was lodged, upon the ground of a technical defect in the information. Upon the appeal a mass of fresh evidence was introduced, and eventually the former judgment was reversed. In disposing of the appeal, his Honor said : " This case is one of some public importance. No one can dislike more than I do having to sit here for the best part of a day to determine whether a bottle of beer was or was not sold. The case of itself would be contemptible, were it not for the principle involved. The questions left for me to determine are whether the law is to be openly violated, or bow far I should respect the opinion and finding of the Magistrate. That Mr Revell gave the case as it was pre« sented to him the most careful and serious consideration, will be believed by everyone who knows him, as also that he found fairly upon the facts as they came before him, but I am now called upon to set his verdict' aside upon mere technical grounds. We find then that in this case the police employed a man to go about the town for the purpose of tricking people into a breach of the law. A hired man is sent round the town to actually in* tice people to break the law. Now that is a proceeding which the Court could not uphold. It is urged by the Crown Prosecutor that the course was necessary in order to preserve the law, but that is a Jesuitical argument which I connot endorse. As to the impolicy of throwing that kind of duty upon the police, I have already expressed my opinion, and need jaot therefore do so again at any length. If the Government desire to protect the law, let them employ special men for that branch o f service, and not force important peace officers into the degrading position of informers. There can be no question, I think, that if the police are made to do this kind of work they will eventually become obi noxious to the community, and the re* suit will be that in important cases in which their presence and assistance would be of the highest moment, their value would be weakened, and the ends of justice made to suffer. Quite recently I had occasion to make the same remarks in a similar case in Greymouth, and was in consequence treated very badly by two newspapers —much worse than any Judge deserved to be treated— bufc I had at least the satisfaction of subsequently seeing similar opinions expressed in a leading article in the Melbourne Argus, as well as of learniug that in a solemn decision of the Judges at Home the same views have been confirmed." Speaking upon the merits of the appeal, bis Honor said the intention to sell the liquor, as well as the. sale itself, had been fully proved, but the evidence went to show that the storeman, by whom the sale had been made, bad ac*ed beyond bis authority. Bub if he did not sustain the appeal on this ground, he felt that he should have to do so on the legal point raised by Mr Lynch, as it was clear that to give jurisdiction it should have been set out that the offence was committed within a proclaimed goldfield, and the conviction should show this. The appeal would therefore be sustained, and in doing so he referred to the position in which the Magistrate was placed in such cases. He said this class of ap* peals were made upon law and fact, | and at the hearing a mags of fresh evidence was brought, amounting in fact to a new trial, leaving the issue to be determined not infrequently upon cvi

denee which never came before the Magistrate. In this way defendants ascertained the weak points their cases in the Magistrate's Court, and then patching up these deficiencies with fresh evidence, carried the case to the District Court to-obtain a new trial. This placed the Magistrate in a very unfair position. However, such was the law, and he had no alternative but to administer it as he found it,