TEE WELLINGTON PRESS AND PUBLIC MORALS.

Evening Post, Volume LX, Issue 115, 12 November 1900, Page 6

TEE WELLINGTON PRESS AND PUBLIC MORALS.

COMPLIMENTARY REMARKS BY JUDGE ED-WARDS. — — — t During his charge to the Grand Jury, this morning, Mr. Justice Edwards said he had received a letter from a body of ladies Who appeared 1 to be interested in social matters, suggesting thai the publication of the details of a charge of abortion, should be prohibited, and that he should hear the case with closed doors. Those ladiesy— with every good intent in the world, he had no doubt — had made a mistake in. addressing such a communication to a Judge at all. All communications to -a Judge should be made in open Court. That, of course, was essential in, the interests of justice, and it was quite improper and irregular for a private communication to be addressed to the Bench on such a subject. With regard to their rcmesfc, he might say he was not aware ,that he had any power whatever to prohibit the publication of these proceedings or to hear the case with closed doors ; nor, if he had the power in criminal matters, would he be at all inclined to exercise it without the very gravest reasons. He agreed with the ladies who had caused, this letter to be written that it was entirely undesirable that the details of a case of the kind should be published, but it would be still more undesh'able to alloAv it to be said that any one cotdd be tried secretly and not under the eyes of the public. And in Wellington., . he might say, he thought the course suggested was entirely unnecessary. If there was one thing, the^ would all agree, with him, which was^ntirely to the credit o[ the Wellington newspapers — and it always had been so, in his experience — it was that everything of an improper nature in criminal and other proceedings was excluded from their columns. He was quite sure, therefore, that even if he had the power, and even if in soimo instances it was quite proper to exercise it, it would be entirely unnecessary to do so in Wellington, with regard to charges such as this and others of an even more disgusting character that unfortunately must occupy the attention of the Grand Jury.