CORRESPONDENCE.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume III, Issue 172, 29 April 1864, Page 5 (Supplement)

CORRESPONDENCE.

To the Editor of the Hawke's Bay Times.

Sir, — As I presume your columns are open for all, I will trouble you to insert the following; and as any observations I may make are brought forward solely on public grounds, I feel no hesitation in asking room for their insertion in your valuable journal. I sued Mr. Henry Robert Russell for debt at the Waipawa Court, held at that place on Thursday, 11th February, before G. S. Cooper, Esq., R.M., and Major Lambert, J.P. The case was adjourned till the 23rd. The R.M., however, sent an express to intimate that it would be more convenient to hear it on the 20th. On that day were present the R.M., plaintiff and defendant, but, in the absence of some documents considered necessary to be forwarded to Napier, to obtain a legal opinion upon, it was again adjourned till 10th March, when it was finally heard before G. S. Cooper, Esq., R.M., Capt. Carlyun, J.P., E. S. Curling, Esq., J.P., and W. F 'annin, Esq., J.P., and I obtained judgment for £6 19s. 10d., with costs.

I should state that during the first hearing defendant made remarks of a personal and irrelevant nature, without anycheek whatever from the R.M.; that I let them pass for some little time, but at last replying with some warmth, was immediately reprimanded by the Court. That on the 20th, the R.M. before the arrival of defendant, assured me that, should the papers not arrive in time for that day (Saturday), he would without fail hear the case on the next Monday, at the same time regretting having brought me so far for no purpose ; that on defendant arriving they both conversed apart, and, after keeping me waiting near the precincts of the Court for several hours, the Court formally announced that the case was adjourned till the 10th March. That on the 10th March, the defendant having failed to get any witness to substantiate his statement, indulged the Court with a long recapitulation of those points he considered most telling in his favor, again without any sign of weariness on the part of the Court, and when I claimed to be heard for a few seconds, after what had fallen from the defendant, was at once requested by the R.M. not to be long, or to cut it short, or words to that effect.

The defendant, not paying the money, I wrote to the R.M. on the 28th, putting the letter into his hands the same day, (in all my communications I had to deal with the R.M., as there is no clerk,) instructing him to take further proceedings, and this I requested him t > do immediately, and on the 11th instant received the following reply : Court House, Waipawa, April Gth, 186-1. Smith v. Russell. Sin, —I enclose herewith a cheque from the defendant in above cause for £7 10s. 10d., being judgment, £6 19s 10d., and costs, 11s., —£7 10s. lOd. I also enclose the £1 note sent me in vonr letter of the 28th ultimo, the money having been paid by the defendant without further process of court.

I am, sir, Your obedient servant, (Signed) G. S. Cooper, Resident Magistrate. John Smith, Esq., Napier. (copy op cheque.) Mount Herbert, April 4, 18(54. To the Manager of the Union Bank of Australia, Rapier.

Pay John Loafer Smith, or bearer, seven pounds ten shillings and tenpence, being the amount of an unjust claim for share of an expedition to Otago, to which I agreed to bo a party on certain conditions that were not complied with. (Signed) 11. E. Russell. £7 10s. lOd. I at once replied as follows: Napier, April 11, 18(54. SmifJi v. JRusseU. Sir, —I enclose herewith a cheoue from (he defendant in above case for £7 10s. lOd. I am not bound to take any man’s cheque in payment for a judgment of Court. If the Court will accept a cheque reflecting on the decision of the Bench, I will certainly not accept one insulting to myself. I enclose the £1 note again, that execution may bo immediately proceeded with. I am, Sir, Your obedient servant, J. Smin, GK S. Cooper, Esq., R.M. I have since received the following : Court House, Waipawa, April 15, 1864.

Smith v. Russell. Sie, —I have to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, of the 11th inst., returning the cheque of defendant in the above cause for £7 10s. 10d., which you refuse to accept in satisfaction of judgment ; also a £1 bank note to cover the costs of execution for which you apply. Having accepted Mr. Russell’s cheque as payment into Court, I cannot take any further proceedings against him. I have therefore cashed it, and the amount of £8 10s. lOd. is now in the hands of the Court, awaiting your personal application.

I am, Sir, Your obedient servant, G-. S. Cooper, Resident Magistrate John Smith, Esq., Rapier. On the 18th, I wrote the 11. M., requesting an explanation ; he in reply (19th) referred me to his letter of the 15th. Now, sir, my object in writing is to expose such a barefaced piece of behaviour. No language of mine can express the contempt I feel for the actor and participator in such meretricious conduct. Here, sir, what do we see ? Men who, by their position, are bound not only cheerfully to obey the law, but to uphold it in its majesty and integrity; —one, the Honorable Henry Robert Russell, the Sheriff of a Province, a member of the Colony’s Legislature, a Justice of the Peace, and a man of wealth and station, stooping to perform an act which, by taking an unfair advantage of his position, he contrives to do with impunity, and one which, while it lowers him in the eyes of all thinking men, and rejects disgrace on the very Bench whence he almost daily dispenses justice, would not I think be tolerated by him had he been sitting on that Bench, instead of being sued as defendant; —the other, George Sisson Cooper, Esq., Resident Magistrate, who presides over Justice, who holds her scales in his hands, whose smile should be impartial, whose frown on all alike severe, whose brow should wear the tiara of Independence, and whose name should be above suspicion, by forwarding to me a decument like this participating in and endorsing this act, and by deferring to grant at once the warrant of execution, and in this way identifying himself with its author, and becoming an instrument in its’author’s hands of perpetrating an unprovoked insolence and of receiving and transmitting to the Bench who sat with him a gratuitous and unwarrantable reflection on their decision, —it is to be fairly inferred not only without the faintest murmur of disapprobation, but with a meek and lowly concurrence in the reproof administered to himself and them alike ! !

What, sir, would have been the course pursued by the R.M. Ind the defendant been a pour man? (Vide Collins’ incarceration.) Immediate proceedings, and possibly imprisonment in gaol. But because the defendant holds a high position, and assumes the airs of a self-made lord, and even at times fancies he is one in reality, is this a reason why the Resident Magistrate should bow in servile humility to him, do his behests at his bidding, become the medium of his insulting aspersions, and accept and tacitly acquiesce in his imputations on the Bench, on their behalf and his own ? Does the Resident Magistrate imagine there is any excuse—does lie think his conduct can be palliated—“for having accepted Mr. Russell’s cheque as payment into Court ?” or that any consideration could have justified him in becoming the medium of transmission of a document which he knew was intended as an insult, and an animadversion on that justice administered by the Bench of which he is- a magistrate ? “ Having accepted Mr. Russell’s cheque as payment into Court, I cannot take any further proceedings against him : 1 have therefore cashed it,” wrote the R.M. on the 15th. So, having accepted the defendant's cheque, he has laid himself open to the consequences, and is obliged, in order to clear himself, to cash the rejected document, while he has totally disregarded the plaintiff’s positive instructions, and thus judgment was stayed—and justice staved — and the would-be lord ge L s off’ .without the sight of the bailiff at his door. Who, I ask, can go with proper confidence before such U 161! to obtain justice ? Who can look for unfaltering impartiality at the hands of men who while they possess very large powers, can lend.themselves to an act like? this ?

I am told, sir, on all sides, that the wording of the cheque which is now in my possession is actionable ; —could such a course serve any good end, I should not hesitate to pursue it. Private animosity, however, I cannot feel towards its author ; contempt is a more befitting epithet; and while personally I could pass by its author’s insolence in silence, I am not justified on public grounds in permitting such notorious behaviour to escape the grave censure it deserves. I am, &c., J. Smith. Napier, April 22nd, 1864.