ECHOES OF THE WEEK.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1224, 16 August 1895, Page 21

ECHOES OF THE WEEK.

Satire's ray Weapon, but I'm too discreet To ran atnuck and tilt at all I meet. Pope.

BY SCRUTATOR.

There is' no denying the fact that the result of the Masterton murder case has surprised and irritated a very large section of the public. In the Wairarapa, so lam told, the opinion is expressed fifty times a day wherever men do congregate that it is the jury who ought to be sent to a lunatic asylum and not Somervillo, an opinion I merely mention, but do not share, for to my mind the gross failure of justice in this affair was due to the extraordinary way in which the case for the Crown was conducted. As a matter of fact only one of the doctors who gave evidence had the ghost of a claim to.be considered an expert in criminal lunacy, and the experience of Dr Fooks himself, quite a young man, is necessarily very limited. Nevertheless the Crown Prosecutor should have called other medical evidence, and could then, I firmly believe, have easily rebutted the arguments set forth on behalf of the accused. As for medical "expert" evidence in cases like this I would not give the proverbial " tuppeny " cussword for it, but seeing that the whole case was made to hinge upon such testimony, it was, I think, the duty of. the Crown's representative to have met the defence by counter evidence which might, I feel convinced, have easily been procured.

The morbid, mawkish sympathy which has been expressed by some with Somerville, as cold-blooded and fiendish an assassin as ever escaped the gallows, is, I am told, in some instances, the result of an idea that he had been shamefully treated by his victim, who, so it. was at one time alleged, had cheated the murderer out of his wages. As a matter of fact, nothing of the sort occurred. Poor Herbert, who was one of the Herberts of Herbertville, a family well known and justly respected all over Hawke's Bay, was a most honourable man, and never, I venture to say, swindled either Somerville or any other man out of a shilling. The facts are, so I am informed, that one of Somerville's mates on the contract sublet to them by Herbert wished to leave the party, and when leaving a miscalculation was made as to his share of the money. Herbert paid the money over, and the departing partner, so I hear, got much more than he was entitled to. Afterwards, when the final settling-up came off, it was found that a mistake had been made, and that consequently Somerville's just share Was not forthcoming. For this, however, Herbert was not to'blame. To try and make out Somerville to be a working-man martyr is foolish and wicked. He was the victim of an unfortunate mistake, but Herbert never wronged him, and even had the former robbed the murderer of his just due, this, of course, would have been no excuse whatever for the atrocious crime which was committed.

The Somerville case has set people talking once more about the follies and positive iniquities which are possible, and alas, only too frequent under the present jury system. The position is, I take it, very easily defined when I express the opinion that if guilty of a crime I would rather be tried by a jury and if innocent I would be perfectly willing to trust myself to the Judge alone. The system of challenging now in vogue may have some advantages, but its drawbacks are notorious. The object of a clever counsel is to get a jury to suit his case, and when to win that case a stupid, ill-educated and grossly prejudiced jury is required, the challenging is a spectacle to make angels weep. lam not alluding in this connection to.the Somerville case in particular, but to nine-tenths of the criminal cases which come before the Supreme Court. It should be, I think, obligatory upon the counsel who challenges to give a reason to the Court for such challenging, the decision to the acceptance or rejection of the juryman being left to the Judge.

Finally, as to the Somerville case, I woidd sum up the result as being a discredit to the Crown, a gross injustice to the murdered man's relatives, an absurdly easy and lucky escape for the assassin, and a distinct triumph for Mr Jellicoe, who, with all his faults, is far and away the best special pleader in an apparently hopeless case that Wellington possesses.

The Catterthun disaster is almost as inexplicable as that which befel the illfated Wairarapa. It is a frightful thing indeed for a fine vessel like this, which has been running along the Australian coast for some years, to be lost in a sea of which every possible danger in the shape of rocks ought to be as well known to the navigating officers as the entrance to Sydney harbour itself. The one relieving feature in the sad story of the Catterthun's loss is the behaviour of the Chinese crew. In not a few instances which might be mentioned Mercantile Jack, of the white skin, has behaved none too gallantly. In the Catterthun case the yellow skinned mariners turned out to be perfect trumps. We often say hard things of John Chinaman, sometimes very deservedly, but in this instance John must be credited with having behaved like a true " white man," behaved much better than some so-called white men have been known to do in latterday maritime disasters.

The House of Commons has reopened its doors, and the new Tory Ministry will now have a chance of proving, if they can, how much better they can govern the country than could the Eosebery team. The Tories have a large majority—so large, indeed, that they could, did they so wish it, dispense with the aid of the Unionist section; but it remains to be seen whether this big majority may not prove in the long run a

source of weakness rather than of strength. Such is not unf requently the final result of over-large majorities, and it may be so in this case. Aiso, it will be interesting to see how long the older Tories will submit to the dictation of Mr Chamberlain. "Judas Joe" is a masterful man, and masterful men are not liked by the average Tory—that is, if they insist upon too many innovations. Besides which, recreants and traitors are always mistrusted, in colonial as well as in English politics. "Do you moind me now," Mr Patea!

So far, Lord Salisbury does not appear to have put down his foot with any great amount of firmness with reference to the Kuchcng horrors. The Chinese Government promises reparation, of course, but in all probability it "winks the other eye" much in theyeauie way that the Turk always does when he is pulled up by the Powers for any of his numerous misdeeds, and fervently vows reform and retribution.

By the way it may be noted that Lord Salisbury has got a big crop of foreign troubles to deal with. The Armenian atrocities might lead to some very awkward complications, and the old friendship for Germany, and the Triple Alliance for which Lord Salisbury is so noted will certainly tend to accentuate any bad feeling France may have for England. Then again there is the Siamese .difficulty with France,-the Chitral problem, the Chinese question, sundry South African difficulties, and the inevitable " rumpus " when the French get to the Malagasy capital and proceed, as they are certain to do, to persecute the English missionaries and other residents who have practically assisted the natives. Add to this that at any moment there may be a political upheaval in Bulgaria, and that the whole of the Danubian states may once more be'in a blaze, and it will be seen that Lord Salisbury has got his hands full.

The Editor' of the New Zealand Times has handed me a letter he has received from the Kev. C. H. Laws, of Hawera, to whose alleged expression of opinion as to the "anti-Christianity" of Dickens I alluded last week. Mr Laws writes to say that he was misrcported, that he knows his Dickens well —knows him just as well as does " Scrutator," which I am delighted to hear—that he respects the great novelist's memory as a man and as a Christian, and that he never attributed or desired to attribute to him that opposition to Christianity which he, Mr Laws, was reported to have expressed. All I can say is that I am sincerely glad to hear that the reverend gentleman was mist-eported, as I should be sorry to think that Dickens should be wilfully misrepresented by a New Zealand minister of religion. The Hawera Star, I notice, states that the report upon which I based my remarks was " contributed" to that paper and was not the work of any member of its staff. The Star editor, as experienced and able a journalist as there is in this Island, ought to know that " contributed" reports should be rigidly supervised and their correctness tested before being put into print. Every editor has been "had" in his time by these " contributed" reports, and they should always be avoided whenever possible. The amateur reporter generally makes a hopeless mess of things and gets other people into trouble thereby. So it has been in this particular instance.

Mr Laws, who writes in a temperate and gentlemanly strain, is good enough to express the opinion that " Scrutator " was no doubt only' too glad to seize upon the report in question as a topic for comment, because it afforded " Scrutator" a chance "to fill up his columns." This is quite a misconception. As a matter of fact I never have the slightest difficulty in finding topics to discuss: The great trouble is t© find the necessary time and space for their discussion. Not for worlds would I have it go forth uncontradicted that I am ever languishing for "copy." The next time Mr Laws comes ;to Wellington, if he will drop in at the-; Mail office, I shall be delighted to conviuco him that every week I suffer from a distinct plethora of topics and suggestions thereon from one source or another. Nuf sed! •

The first man "who arises in his wrath and kicks Mr W. T. Wtead, of the Review of Reviews —that is to say the Refuse of Refuse —and kicks him very hard, will earn my sincere gratitude and approbation. If ever there was a dirty-minded, hypocritical, and impudent trafficker in pruriency it is the so-called " Good Man " Stead. I have already, on more than one occasion, pointed out bow he delights, when reviewing some risqu& book, to carefully pick out all the dirtiest passages and print them in full, twith" a few whited sepulchre-like bewailings of their iniquity, and now he is again showing himself to be an unclean minded by some comments he makes (in the July number of the Review of Reviews) on the Unspeakable Wilde case. All that he says I would not print here, for this paper is mainly intended for family reading, but I may just pick out one peculiarly gross insult which he, incidentally, levels at the English public schools :

Another contrast, almost as remarkable as that which sends Oscar Wilde to hard labour and places Sir Charles Dilke in the House of Commons, is ' that between the universal execration heaped upon Oscar Wilde and the tacit universal acquiescence of the very same public in the same,kind.of vice in our public schools; If. allpersons guilty of Oscar Wilde's offences were to be clapped into gaol, there would be a surprising exodus from Eton and Harrow, Rugby, and Winchester, to Pentonville and Holloway.

If ever Mr Stead finds himself at Eton, I hope some of the upper form "boys"— stalwart young men, some of them are—will souse Mm well in the Thames, and the colder the day and the dirtier the water the better. To insinuate a wholesale practice of the most abominable form of vice to

young Englishmen in this way is one of the vilest things that even Stead has done, which is saying a great deal. Review of Reviews—Bemuse of Refuse—yes, the synonym is remarkably appropriate.

To Correspondents ("W.T.M." and "The Sluggard ") .—Letters and cuttings received. Many thanks. Will use in next issue, time and space alike lacking this week.