A RIPARIAN CASE.

Evening Post, Volume LXVIII, Issue 101, 26 October 1904, Page 6

A RIPARIAN CASE.

TITLE OF RESUMED LAND IN QUESTION. The Court of Appeal— the Chief Justice (Sir Robert Stout), and Justices Williams, Denniston, Edwards, Cooper, i and Chapman— is hearing to-day the Gis- j borne case of the Crown v. Edward Patrick Joyce, commission agent, of Gisborne, a question as to the ownership of about twelve acres' of shingle land on the bank of the Waipaoa River, about twelve or fourteen miles from Gisborne. The land is part of an area of 45 acres which has been taken by the Government ! for the Gisborne-Karaka railway, and defendant, who claims title to the twelve acres subject to two mortgages, claims £4800 compensation for his 12 acre pared. The Crown, on the other hand, denies defendant's title, and takes this action to upset his claim. The Crown's case is that the land comprised in the original Crown grant was bounded not by the Waipaoa River (as set out in the Crown grant, an« as delineated on the diagram on the grant), but by a large shingle bank, which by river accretion now comprises about 50 acres ; that the 12 acre portion of the shingle land has nover been dealt with by the Crown, and remains Crown land j that it was not comprised in the Crown grant or in defendant's section, and that defendant has no interest in it. The Crown therefore claims an order declaring the 12 acres Crown land, an order that the Crown is entitled to it in fee simple free from encumbrance, and an order restraining the Compensation Court from hearing defendant's claim ; alternatively, an order that the land is not part of defendant's section, an order that it is not comprised in the Crown grant, and an order that defendant has no interost in it. The defence is a general denial of these^ allegations. Defendant says that the section, when vested in his predecessor in title, was bounded by the Waipaoa River as set out in the Grown grant; that the 12 acre portion, or any large portion of it, has not been mado by accretion, though accretion and erosion have taken place on various frontages ; that any accretion has been gradual, and the river has remained the boundary of defendant's section ; that the Crown has no interest in the land. Evidence was heard before Mr. Justice Edwards in Gisborne, and the case was removed into the Court of Appeal. Dr. Findlay appears foi the Crown, Mr. Chapman »oi defendant. Argument is proceeding. *

Messrs. Warnock and Adkin announce a nine dajs' clearing sale of a stock of household linen, etc. Particulars will bo found elsewhere. Mr. Miller R. Hutchison, of New York, claims to havo perfected a devico for the euro of deafness, which is advertised in .another column. v