The Lyttelton Times. MONDAY, FEB. 3, 1879.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LI, Issue 5598, 3 February 1879, Page 4

The Lyttelton Times. MONDAY, FEB. 3, 1879.

If the Justice who presided, and the lawyers who represented the man Bassingthwaite, in the discussion upon, the acceptance of bail for that accused person are right, then a queer state of things exists' in this country. Put, shortly, it simply amounts to this: that any man; if he can put down a round sum of money, ban under;certain circumstances get out of the clutches of the law when he stands committed to take his trial. This is the latest perfection discovered by legal acumen in the law ofthe lahd. Of the facts of the case there is no doubt. Bassingthwaite was committed for trial a few days ago on a charge d! fraudulent insolvency. The at BangiOra, who committed!■ him, decided that bail to a certain amount should, if forthcoming, be accepted. On Friday the sureties appeared before p Justice of the peace in Ohristohurch ip the Magistrate’s Court, prepared ' t|o enter, into a bond for the amount of sail fitted at men admitted that they understood they were to be secured to the nominal amount of their bond. The Inspector of

Police totd tie,B«wli,tliat he had heard, that Mrs Bassingthwaito was collecting money to indemnify the sureties against loss m the event of her leaving the Colony. The lawyers objected to this i evidence, as only hearsay evidence. v They might have also objected on the ground that it was unnecessary, because the admission of the sureties can admit but of one construction vm*. that; somebody intends to .pay the amount of tho bond- in the event of Bassingthwaite’s departure for‘ the Levant. The Bench was natuVallyvevy suspicious, and felt very disinolmedttp aCCept these sureties, who they were not sureties at all. The scene that ensued was one of the .moat amusing thttti can well be conceived, a -eitire iijpbn the law nothing could vbe better. „:.L "‘‘Here were two sureties who: > in, the same breath with which, thtey’ declared the sufficiency ,of their possessions -to guarantee their.; bond," confessed.. that jtyey were perfectly aware that their possessions were not guaranteeing the bond at all. They plainly stated. thet they were not the sureties, but that : in effect .they Had lent their resectable names to Somebody; else, name unknown, who was .the real surety,/and .who they might have added plainly intended to lose his money. Yet .we have'lawyers gravely arguing before a Magistrate that ■ were good and sufficient securities. The line taken was not that'these securities Were good securities, and, therefore, must he accepted, that would have been too transparent an absurdity even for a lawyer to advocate.. Butnlegal ingenuity, discovered another method equally efficacious for .proving black to be white. The lawyers, contented themselves with arguing that, the conditions as to bail required by "the committing Magistrate having been complied! . Vfitli, the Justice before whom they were had no discretion and must; accept the bail offered. 1 They avoided the awkward admission of the would-not-he. sureties, and did" not go beyond the fact that these gentlemen had sworn to the sufficiency of their means to make good the bond. The committing Magistrate had decided that this was sufficient, and the presiding Justice was hound not to consider any other matter whatever. This doctrine they crammed down the throat of the Bench by means of the sixty-first clause of “The Justices of the Peace Act, 1866.” The Bench swallowed the pill, and decided that the confessedly phantom sureties must be accepted.

Now it seems hard to believe that such. & thing could be. If the Magisterial ruling and legal contention are right, then it is easy to conceive cases in which great criminals must escape the punishment of their crimes simply by; spending their own money, or by prevailing upon their friends to spend theirs. Fortunately, there are the strongest grounds for believing that both ruling and contention are wrong. Bail is accepted in certain cases, not thataccused persons may escape through payment of a sum of money, but that they may appear in due time at the place of trial. The surety who guarantees enters into an honourable understanding with the Court that if the accused does not appear he will forfeit a certain sum of money, and it is also understood that the forfeiture of the money is with him a tangible strong consideration. How any honourable man can enter into an honourable understanding of the kind, knowing well that he will not forfeit anything in case of the non-appearance of the accused; and how any honourable man can sign his name as a surety when he knows well that somebody else is the surety, are questions which the sureties do not seem to have considered in this case. They are questions of the vital importance of which, with respect to public morality,- there should be the widest posssible appreciation. To return to the legal aspect of the matter. The object of bail, evident, is to ensure the appearance'of the accused in Court at the time of trial. The clause which Bassingthwaite’s lawyers crammed down the throat of the sitting Justice-rclause 61 of “ The justices of the Peace Act, 1866,” —expressly provides that the committing magistrate, at his discretion, may in certain cases accept bail if he think fit. The words of the clause are quite clear. The sureties to be accepted are defined to be such as “in the opinion of such Justice will be sufficient to ensure the appearance of such accused person at the time and place when and where he is to be tried.” It is not a question pf whether the sureties are worth the amount of money stated in the bond, or whether the money is laid on the table of the Court, or whether the whole wealth of the mines of Golconda is piled up on its floor. It is a question of the likelihood of the man’s appearance in Court. This, provision, both bench , and prosecuting counsel seemed to have omitted •to notice, and the ' other- counsel, of course could not be expected to have his eye within half a mile, of it at the ; critical moment. According to this e vision the committing Magistrate, mg before .him the awkward admission of' the would-not-he securities, could have decided that the bail was hot sufficient to en|bre the accused’s appearance in Court. Now the presiding Justice was hot the committing Magistrate. He was either in the place of that Magistrate, with regard to the bail arrangements, or he ; was not. If he was not, then he had no power to accept bail at all under the sixty-first; clause quoted,' which only ,refers to committing; Magistrates. If he was,-then,he could exercise the same discretion as the committing Magistrate, and refuse to accept the hail offered. In either case Mr Lee could have refused to swallow the sophistries of /the ) legal practitioners. To r ffiold otherwise would- be’ to hold that the law expressly provides a method for its own bribery and corruption,—a method by which a man accused of Acrlme can :compound with the State round sum of money. !^ei» : in hhe law, .hut happily none so glaringly ffross aar would be.- w t