JUSTICES' JUSTICE.

Evening Star, Issue 7336, 7 October 1887, Page 1

JUSTICES' JUSTICE.

We are always unwilling to call in question the action of the Law Courts in the exercise of their jurisdiction, but there are now and again decisions of so extraordinary a character as to demand comment in very plain words. Juries in Dunedin have given very strange verdicts, but we hardly recollect an instance where there has -been a perversion of justice as in the case of Augusta Margabet Powell, who waß charged before the City Police Court with having "assaulted, wounded, and illtreated" her little girl, of two years old, and who (this unnatural conduct having been fully proved) was, by two Justices, sentenced merel/ to pay a fine of £5 and find sureties in a trifling sum to keep the peace, whereas she should most certainly have been committed for trial.

It is impossible to read, without a shudder and a feeling of shame that humanity should be so disgraced, the particulars of these brutal outrages, for there were a series of them, as detailed by the witnesses for the prosecution. Edmund Anscombe, an intelligent youth of fourteen, deposed that he was looking through a fence into Mrs Powell's yard and saw "the baby "walking from one fence to the other. It " was being made to walk by being thrashed " with a strap by Mrs Powell. The baby " fell down, and was thrashed to make it "get up. . . The child's face was all "over blood. Mrs Powell hit the child "over the face with the strap"! DtMabtih, who had been called in to attend the child on account of her having been seized with fits, did not until his second visit suspect violence, but he then observed " black and blue marks on the child's face," and very properly proceeded to investigate the matter. On examination he found " black marks all " over the child's body, more especially on " the left side—on the arm, leg, and thigh. ". . The head was so marked all over that *' it was hard to find a place where there was "no mark. . . Had seen the child again, " and found the left arm had been fractured "at no distant date. . . The effect of these " injuries was that the child was extremely " nervous; very likely the beatings were the " cause of the fits." Be Robebts gave evidence to the effect that when the child was brought to the Hospital he examined it and discovered " scattered bruises all over the " body, and more concentrated marks over " the arms and thighs. Found also a frac- " ture of one of the bones of the arm: a " decided fracture of one bone, and a doubt"ful fracture of the other. . . . He " thought the fracture was caused by direct "violence, and not by a fall, and the " bruises were caused by violence applied "to the surface." The learned gentleman entrusted with the defence made the most, it must be admitted, of a very bad case. He contended that the only "grievous bodily harm" was the fracture of the arm; and that there was no evidence to show that this was caused by the accused, nor to show any direct violence on her part. "All that was dts- " closed by the evidence was that Mrs (C - -

Powell, in trying to cure the child of an objectionable habit, had injudiciously whipped it with a strap." She may consider herself fortunate, we think, that she is not now awaiting her trial for manslaughter, for she must have been within a very little of killing the poor baby. The Bench decided that the child "had been very grossly ill-treated," and then pro* ceeded, in the face of this opinion and of such evidence as we have quoted, to inflict a trumpery fine—about the same that it is customary to impose on a habitual drunkard. The failure of justice in this case is so distinct that we feel it our duly to direct attention to the subject, which, we further hope, will not escape the notice of the Government. A helpless babe of two yean old beaten within an inch of its life—the head and face a mass of bruises, one arm broken—this barbarous treatment condoned by the two sitting Magistrates as if it were a mere trivial offence, and the poor child left, we may presume, to the tender mercies of the unnatural mother. Such instances as this are little else than a scandal, and cannot be too severely condemned by public opinion.