Hawke's Bay Herald. SATURDAY, MARCH 22, 1879.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 5337, 22 March 1879, Page 2

Hawke's Bay Herald. SATURDAY, MARCH 22, 1879.

The case of Mr Henry Jackson, the late Chief Surveyor of the Wellington Provincial District, raises a question of considerable importance to the Civil Service of gthe colony. The question , is whether the investigation of charges made by the head of a department against one of his subordinates should j be remitted to t\ve or three heads of other departments, commissioned by ! | the Government to conduct the I inquiry. On principle, We think, the | practice is bad, because a tribunal so constituted is naturally in sympathy with the accuser, and so the accused is ! placed at a disadvantage. It may ! i possibly be that the gentlemen com- ! posing the tribunal are actuated by a sincere desire to deal even-handed justice, neither leaning to the one side nor to the other; but insensibly a man's views are influenced by his feelings, and the feeling which may be supposed to predominate most strongly in the mind of a head of department is that of repressing insubordinatien. Indeed it would appear to be a far more correct practice, if, in accordance with the maxim that a man should be tried by his peers, the tribunals for investigating charges against subordinate civil servants were composed of men holding the like position in the service as the accused. Mr Henry Jackson's case has been j tried by three Government officials — .Messrs K. G. Fountain, W. Gray, and It. C. Hammerton — and, so far as we are able to judge, it does certainly appear that their decision has been very considerably influenced by the feeling to which we have referred, and t that Mr Jackson has in consequence suffered a very serious injustice. The charges were preferred against him by the Surveyor-General, and we are almost compelled to arrive at the conclusion, from a perusal of Mr Jackson's I defence, that the Surveyor-General's position has had a weight which should not have been given to it, in the decision the tribunal arrived at. If, in so thinking, we do an injustice to the gentlemen who composed that tribunal, the fault lies with the Government in not giving publicity to .the evidence that was taken. We have gone very carefully through Mr Jackson's defence, a printed copy of which we have been favored with, and unless the statemezits he makes are entirely untrue, it is quite impossible to conceive how the decision could have gone against him. Some of j the charges, too, appear to be of a trumpery nature, scarcely meriting censure if proved, and certainly not deserving the dismissal from the Civil Service of a gentleman who bears so higli a reputation as Mr Jackson. Take, for instance, the fol- i lowing, which is charge No. 5 : — " That the instructionsunderauthorityforoffi.ee j record have been ignored, no practical I attempt having been made by you to arrange and keep maps as directed." To this Mr Jackson replied that the charge was so vague that he entirely failed to comprehend its purport until he heard the evidence in support of it. " It appears to me now," he went on to say, " that I am charged therein, in the first place, with keeping the plots of the new surveys in rolls hung up on the walls of the Survey Office, instead of in portfolios put away in a safe, according to the new regulations. Gentlemen, I request you to look round and view these portfolios before you, which contain the plots of the new surveys. There they are ; and if this is not in strict compliance with the regulations, I do not know how otherwise they should be kept. I admit that the press in which these portfolios are stowed away is not as yet placed in a safe, for the simple reason that there is no such thing as a safe of any description in connection with my office. About two years ago, at the request of the Surveyer-General, I furnished plans and estimates for building a brick safe, but since then I have not heard anything more from him on this subject." What this amounts to simply is that the head of a department charges his subordinate with a neglect the blame for which rests either upon the Governmen or upon the head of the department himself. The space at our command will not permit of our going into any of the other charges, but they are more or less much of the same kind. We should be sorry to impute any improper motives, either to the ChiefSurveyor for making the charges, or to the gentlemen who investigated them for the decision they arrived at ; but we must say that the case is one that demands inquiry. A gentleman occupying a high position in the Civil Service has been dismissed from it upon grounds which appear to be insufficient, and the public, who are in reality the employers of the civil servants, are very deeply concerned in having it made clear whether or not an injustice has been done ; and if there has, full reparation must be insisted upon. We trust that in the ensuing session the case will be brought Ww* Jtoiweßt.

We learn that the $6urfc of Appoal will sit in ■Wellington on the 12th May next. Yesterday was the usual- civil cftse day at tho Resident Magistrate's Cojlrft TOE there were no 'cases.set.dp.wriror hiaring ? Thomas Lojtg jv-asrnn'ea 10s for dfunkonr ness, and Wpiam, ,Qpuper, f;pr, the. same p.ffervce, Wds W^trplt F. Ej r ,Hanili^ iSsq., was tho presiding Justice Tho Hydes Burlesque Troupe, . gave their second performance last night to a good house, the bill . of iare , ■insisting, df the pretty operetta llkb " Loan 6f a Lover," with Miss Jennie Nyo as Gref-fcrikle, &nd Mr Hydes as Peter Spyk .; and tile burlesque of " Somnambula," the attraction of which consisted in the songs. and dancos.of tne Misses Alice and Aniy J6hns> Avnich. were, in aliriost every cases encored. The other characters p the burlesque were taken by JNJiss Lizzie Morgan, Messrs Hydei?', Alexander, Wilkinson, and £dye. To-night tho Christmas Pantomime of "Snow White" wiJI. be produced. Wo are requested to call attention to Messrs Routledge Konnedy and Co.'s salo of race horses to-day at Mi v White s yards, Farndoi^ Tile Hdr'ses include Barbelle, Ika-, Commissioner, and Roebuck, the 'tlidi v dugh-brod entries Stirabout 4rtd Camden, besides several useful hacks. The salo takes place at noon. Divine service will (D.V.) be held on Sunday next, 23rd inst., as follows : — Waipukurau, at 11 a.m., by the Rev-. R. Frasor; Kaikora, at 3 p.m., and Waij)awa) at 7 p.nv.-, by tne Rev. J. U. Sponce ; and Ashley-Clinton, at 11 a.m., by Mr Gfratii* The topic uppermost with Thames Volunteers just now is the success of Petty-ofiacor Gordon and tho Navals at the Nelson meeting. Kellar, of tho Engineers, comes in for a fair share of commendation, together -with big Donald Reid of the Scottish. On the whdle, our boys have acqiiitted themselves right gallantly in their representation of Thames niai'ksmen at tho Association meeting. The projected route at the Easter holidays to the Waikato meets with much favor from the rank and file, who appreciate a bit of real soldiering in lieu of their perpetaal " playing at makebelieve" in gas-lit halls. Each man, wo are informed, will be required to take a rug or blanket, rolled Yankee fashion, in order to be prepared for a bivouac. If sufficient teats . are not available, there are splendid barns and out-buildings at Hamilton capable of accommodating 500, men. — Thames Advertiser. "Atticus," in the Melbourne Leader of the Ist inst. says : — " The bachelors of Australia find favor in the eyes of the daughters of her governdfSi .Viscount Canterbury and Bir Hetcules Robinson have found sons-in-law at the antipodes, and the marriage of Sir George F. Bowen's eldest daughter with the son of a Melbourne squatter is on the tapis. Tho engagement was sanctioned the evening before the lady took her departure for Mauritius, whither, no doubt, she will soon be followed by her suitor." The old inhabitants of the Isle of Wight assert that they have no recollection of so severe a winter as the present, and it is reported that recently a sheet of ice stretched out from the seawall at Ryde, a distance of about a hundred yards. The ice was broken and tested, in order to make suro that it was Sea Svater. . A good illustration of the difficulties attending London journalism is given by the fact that the other day all but one morning paper were hoaxed on the subject of the co-operation movement. A "liner" sent in some copy to every paper, purporting to be the report of a great meeting said to be held near Oxf ordstreet) by the tradesmen of the district. The text of the speeches delivered and resolutions passed in them all seemed quite regular, and nearly all the journals printed it. Enquiry goes to show that no such meeting ever took place, and that the whole thing was the invention of some poor man who wanted to earn a few shillings. — Liverpool Post. The Neio York World of the 22nd November has the following among its police cases : — " Mary and Katie Blackburn, two Scotch girls, were until 11th November employed as cook and chambermaid by Margretta Weatherhead, of No. 17, West Twenty-sixth-street. Mrs Weatherhead missed a pair of Lislethread stockings and velvet trimming, worth together four dollars. Detective Price found the goods in the possession of the girls. Yesterday they wero put on trial in General Sessions. The evidence was weak, and they denied the charge. Judge Sutherland directed the jury to acquit Katie. ' During my experience on tho Bench,' said he, after the jury had retired, 'these are the first Scotch persons that have been tried before me. Judge Sutherland is of Scotch descent himself. He was reminded that a Scotch sailor was once before him. ' Oh, yes,' he said, ' I remember that case. He was accused of some crime, but I was satisfied that he was innocent, and discharged him. I believe that these girls are innocent too, but I think they are a little bit cracked.' The jury couldn't agree, and Judge Sutherland charged them over again. 'If one is guilty the other is,' one of the jurors remarked. ' Not 'necessarily,' said the Judge. 'If Mary stole the stockings,' another of the jurors put in, ' Katie knew of it.' ' That is not good law, nor is it good sense,' Judge Sutherland replied sharply. The jury again retired, and in a few minutes returned and reported that they had found Mary guilty. flf you are guilty,' said the Judge to tho prisoner ' (and it is possible the verdict in«y be right), I beg of you to stop at once, and lead an honest life. It is a remarkable thing that so very few of your countrymen and countrywomen appear in this Court. Don't you disgrace your nationality. I am going to give you a light sentence, hoping that you will lead a honest life when you are released.' He then sentenced her to the City Prison for thirty days. Judge Sutherland, during his long service on the bench, has sentenced only one Scotchman, and only three of them altogether have appeared before hini charged with crime." An amusing scene recently occurred during the performance of "Formosa," in the Aberdeen Theatre, which is thus described by the Globe: — It happened when, towards the end of the first act of the drama, Bob Saunders, the dog fancier, comes upon the stage with sundry ]>uppies, stuffed, all except the head, into his coat pockots. Bob ihad just sailed from the right wing of the proscenium, when glancing towards the upper private box according to the custom of some experienced actors, his eye had probably caught that of one of the two male occupants of the box. At that instanfc Bob Lad to speak the catchword of the part, "Buy a little do'rg ?" which, of course, was received with great laughter by the audience generally; but the risible feelings of the audience were qxiickly turned into astonishment when one of the gentlemen in the box stood up, and with an excited look, and in a very distinct Continental accent, protested that he did not want to buy " one dog," and stated that he thought it a most unusual proceeding on the part of an actor to ask him " one so wonderful impertinent question!" The actor used all his tact to stave off awkward interruptions with. a jest, but the stranger, like Mr Joskin Tulbbs, evidently "felt hurt;" and liko him, too, persisted in stating his self-niado grievance, until Mr Gomersal also lost his temper, and ordered the interrupting party to be turned out of the theatre. This had ultimately to be done, and tho drop scene had to be rung down. Hans, however, refused to leave the box without his friend, and the two friends, doubtless with unusually ruffled feelings, were forcibly ejected, after Avhich the performance went on smoothly. '