The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE Published every Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday Morning. Saturday, November 23, 1889.

Gisborne Standard and Cook County Gazette, Volume III, Issue 381, 23 November 1889, Page 2

The Gisborne Standard AND COOK COUNTY GAZETTE Published every Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday Morning.

Saturday, November 23, 1889.

Be just and fear not; Let all the ends thou aim’at at be thy country's, Thy God’s, and truth’s.

” OUT OF THINE OWN MOUTH,” *c. The “ Criminal Evidence Act ” of last session is not proving, in Gisborne at least, the unqualified blessing that its promoters claimed it to be. Within the past few days three several prisoners have taken “ advantage ” of the Act, and we think it may be safely said, in two of the three cases, to their great disadvantage, In fact in one of those cases the Magis, trate as good as told the prisoner that his statement, made upon oath, supplied what the prosecution required to bring the guilt home to the prisoner. 11 may be that in these cases only real culpritshave been punished, and some persons would argue that that being the real aim of every trial, no harm was done. While granting this in the particular cases, yet it is altogether inconsistent with the British idea of fair play and justice to convict a man out of his own mouth. We leave that to the French tribunals, and pride ourselves that our ways are not the ways of France. There is, however, another view of this question which must likewise be considered. We refer to the incentive that the new Act gives to a prisoner to commit perjury. Without going so far as to say that perjury was committed in any of the cases that we refer to, it must be manifest that the Magistrate in convicting the prisoners must have utterly disbelieved their evidence. In one case the tale told was an absurd one; another story the Magistrate characterised as “ lame.” Mr Booth evidently recognises the danger of one crime leading to another, for he now orders the Clerk of the Court to take down the prisoner’s statements in writing—-“ in case,” as he said in Court the other day, “of perjury being committed.” If the Act works no better elsewhere than it does here, we predict for it no greater result than to increase the number of convictions secured by the police, and, what is (more deplorable, to encourage prisoners to commit perjury.