THE New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) MONDAY, JUNE 1, 1885

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIV, Issue 7491, 1 June 1885, Page 2

THE New Zealand Times. (PUBLISHED DAILY.) MONDAY, JUNE 1, 1885

The law points reserved in the proses cations against W. WahiNG Taylob have now been argued and decided in the Court of Appeal. la one case the conviction has been Quashed, and in the other confirmed. Comment with regard to the latter case is unnecessary, and would, indeed be improper, as the Court in which the prisoner was tried has yet to pass sentence. But on the assumption that the taxpayer has to find the money for the prosecution ' which proved abortive, and which is now done with, a word or two concerning it may not be out of place. From the very first we could not understand how it was possible that the evidence adduced in that case ’ could support a conviction, or how the conviction could be upheld on appeal. The prisoner was indicted under the first part o i section 74 of the Larceny Act, 1807, as having been entrusted as agent with a sum of money, namely, £7OO, with a direction in writing to apply such money for the purposes specified in such direction, and with having, in violation of good faith, converted such money to his own use. The evidence showed that the prisoner received a letter, dated June 10th, 1881, from Mr Mat, stating that he proposed directing the Bank of New Zpalaud to pay to prisoner the September dividend of his (May’s) shares in the Bank. The letter also requested the prisoner to invest the money on first-class security. The dividend was not declared till September 30th, and the dividend warrants were issued in October. In the early part of September the prisoner obtained £7OO from the Bank on the strength of that letter, and at once misappropriated the money. At that time the Bank had not even been advised to pay the dividend to prisoner when it should become due. Evidently the £7OO was in the nature of a loan to Mr May, through the prisoner, the Bank looking for repayment out of the expected dividend. “It did not appear,” says the judgment of the Court of Appeal, “ that the prisoner was authorised by Mr Mat, by power of attorney or otherwise, to draw cheques in bis name or to pledge his credit with the Bank for money advanced. Nor did it appear that the' Bank had received any authority from Mr Mat to hand over money to the prisoner by way of loan, to be paid out of afdture dividend. Now, -at the time the prisoner got the money, no dividend had been declared, and although the declaration of a dividend in respect Pf the Bank’s transactions for the half year ending on the SOfch of the month may have been reasonably certain, yet it was possible for circumstances to have arisen which would have prevented the declaration of a dividend.” The conviction was quashed for the very sufficient reason that the £7OO obtained by prisoner as a loan from the Bank was not. entrusted to him by Mr and was not part of the dividend which was expected to be paid at the end of September. How,could it be, when the dividend had not yet been declared, and the prisoner had no authority to forestall it, or the Bank to advance on it on behalf of Mr Matl The prisoner may have' been guilty of a great wrong, and may have done something to render himself liable to prosecution; but clearly he had not done what was charged in the indictment. It is hard that the public should have to pay for a prosecution so illfounded ; and hard that the time of the Court, the jury, and the witnesses should have been so wasted. Under the circumstances of that case no one will be .inclined to sympathy with the prisoner, but, nevertheless, he too has cause of complaint. Supposing him to have been guilty of an offence the charge against him should have been shaped, in such a way that the evidence, whether weak or strong, would tend to support it.