RECORDER OF LONDON.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 36, 12 February 1925, Page 5

RECORDER OF LONDON.

CHARGE TO GRAND JURY. LORD CHIEF JUSTICE'S REBUKE LONDON, February 11. The Court of the King's Bench today discharged a rule which had been granted on Friday calling upon the editor and publishers of the "Evening News" to show cause why they should not be committed for contempt of Court for publishing a report of the Recorder's comments to the grand jur3" on the liobbs case. The Lord Chief Justice said it was too late in the day to argue that newspapers were not entitled to report charges to grand juries. It was a serious misfortune that such a charge should have been delivered. It was long indeed since a judge had prematurely expressed the opinion that the ultimate verdict, of a petty jury should be of a particular kind. Newspapers should not be punished for publishing an agency report which on the whole was fair and accurate. Tile Court made no order as to costs. (Beuter.) Sir E. E. Wild, X.C.. Recorder of T.on- ' don, in charging the grand jury at the Old Bailey last week referred to the pending trial of William Cooper Hobbs. an elderly solicitor's accountant, on 'i charge of having received a cheque for £150,000 issued by Sir Hari Singh, the young Indian potentate, and stolen abroad. The Recorder said: "Three hundred, thousand pounds may appear to you a large sum to pay for assailing Mrs. Robinson's virtue. Probably you think if farthings were substituted for pounds it would more appropriately

represent the value of virtue, but tliot has nothing to do with us. The point is that f=ir Hari Singh, for political or other reasons, was most anxious to avoid publicity. These clever scoundrels played on the knowledge, and were able to obtain two cheques. I should say there can bp TlO doubt that Hobbs was a party to this gigantic fraud, perhaps one of the most monumental and most impudent in criminals history." The grand jury found a true bill against Hobbs. SPORTS OVERSEAS. DAVIS CUP CONTEST. FRANCE AND ITALY ENTER. NEW YORK, February 11. France and Italy have filed formal entries for the Davis Cup contest. The nations who have challenged so far number seven.—(A. and N.Z. Cable.)