WANTED, A BAILIFF.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume II, Issue 109, 30 April 1881, Page 2

WANTED, A BAILIFF.

It appeared at the Court on Thursday last that a judgment summons, which had been issued four weeks previously, had never been served. The Act required that it should be served ten days before the sitting of the Court. On the case being called, it was stated that the summons had not been served in time, and had been enlarged so as to require the appearance of defendant on the 12th May. The plaintiff very naturally complained of the great waste oi time which such delays involved. He had ridden 30 miles to the Court on the previous occasion ; this time he had ridden 60 miles, and he thought surely three weeks should have been sufficient time to serve a judgment summons on a man in regular employment as a platelayer, whose place of abode was known. The magistrate asked the constable how it was that the service of the summons had been so long delayed. The constable explained, that at the time in question, he was taking the census, and could not serve a summons which took him away from that work. The Resident Magistrate stated that there must evidently be something radically wrong in a system which caused so much inconvenience to the public as was exposed by the facts before the Court. Twenty days ought to have been ample time to serve such a summons as the one in question. The instructions to the police are to serve all summonses, so long as it does not interfere with their other duties. The only way for suitors to do was to serve their own summonses, because there had been no bailiff appointed. There was evidently something very wrong in the system. He did not in any way blame the police, who appeared to have been fully employed.