MELBOURNE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 4436, 8 May 1876, Page 5

MELBOURNE.

(from our own correspondent.)

May 1,

The great Stevenson case is our main support for news and topic of talk in theso unparliamentary times. It is in this respect quite inexhaustible, When the inteieat seems to have nearly run out a change of scene takes place, and the plot branches out in a now direction. It has the charai o* ceaseless novelty and variety. You can cut and come again. But for practical purposes it ha° three chief aspects. These aro (1) the forcible expulsion of the Customs officers, their violent entry, and the resistance used to oppose tht in ; (2), the detention of the leiters of the firm by the Government for purposes of examination j (3), and the question which underlies all the rest as to the guilt of the firm in defrauding the Customs. You can easily see that with these manifold sides and their subdivisions, the case is one that will beer a good deal of gossiping and newspaper wiiting without exhausting the topic. The course of the Government during the past week in dealing with the case has been ono of repeated disaster. At the end of the week the chf.rge against Mr Stevenson and his manager {Mr Rrind) of resisting and obstructing the Customs officers in the execution of their duty came on for hearing. The evidence was plain that the men wera put in the premises under the powers of a " writ of assistance" for the purposes of a search, but that they were forcibly expelled by the defendants and their employes. At the conclusion of the evidence, the Bench intimated to the defendants that they considered a prbna facie case had been made out, and that if no evidence was to be called for the defence the case must be sent for trial. But counsel for the defence were persistent in urging a postponement till the next day before entering on the defence, and the application was acceded to. The following day the Bench was well filled with, magistrates, and it appeared that some work analogous to that of the Parliamentary "whip" had bean performed with success. The defence was one wholly of law. Jt was argued that the Customs officers were exceeding the powers of the writ of asistance, and that this being the case they became mere trespassers ab initio, who might rightfully be expelled. It would seem to most people that, when the case was argued oa this ground, it became doubly one to be determined by a higher Court. But the worthy magistrates who had rushed the Bench thought otherwise, and it became the evidently unwilling duty of the Police Magistrate, Mr Scurt, to state that the Bench were equally divided as to whether the defendants should be discharged or committed, and that in this case he ueuld not say, they were either committed or discharged. Virtually they were discharged, and the proceedings, so far, fell to the ground. But it is understood that the GoverniXHtit is not satisfied to let the matter rest here, and that proceedings are to be t;iken in another way before the Supreme Court. This def'.at was one, perhaps, for which the Government is not to be held blcmable. But this cannot be said with r gard to the Government discomfiture on the subject of the detention of the letters of the firm. These were held by the Post Office authorities for a fortnight at the request of the Cus^ too:s officers, who suspected that they would be found to contain s ,ridence to substantiate the charge of defrauding the revenue by means of double sets of invoices. Having at length by their enquiries, and fc'ie evidejee of experts as to the nature of go ds seizad in the warehouse of the firm—which were said to be worth from 15 to 20 percent, moie than the value up'in \vhch duties had been paid—the Comtnissiontr of Customs made a demand upon the Postmaster-General to have the letters opened in the presence of some Customs officers. It may be added that the Government had repeatedly, in answer to the apt.-lications of Messrs Stevenson for.their ; letters^ offered to give them up if the firm would consent to their being opened first in their o,m presence, an offer which the firm absolutely declined. When this demand came upon the Postmaster-Genera!, Mr Llamsay, he re used to- accept- the responsibility of a course that was op;jossd to bis own couvict'iCus of right and legality, and he declined to allow the lett.r.* to be opened save upon tiie decision of the whole Cabinet. A Cabinet Council was held on Monday last to consider the matter, and it is understood that there was a good deal of difference of opiuion am nig members of the Government, and also that a good deal cf pressure had been brought to bear by the free trade supporters against the contemplated course. The result was that the matter was left to be dealt with by the Commissioner of Customs aud the PostmasterGeneral to make a final attempt to bully th« firm, but that failing, the letters were to be given up unopened. A letter was accordingly written to the firm, couched in language showing defective knowkdge of grammar and execrably bad taste and gross want of judgment, inviting the firm once more to consent to the opening of the letters, warning them that if they [still refused, it would bo held that they were afraid of the result, and that in that case the Customs would compel them in future to open every single package of all thoir importations liable to duty. Undismayed by ail this truculent talk, the Messrs Stevenson again demanded their letters, aad they were thereupon given .up unopened. A more undignified discreditable proceeding could have scarcely taken place. It sesma that the Government, in detaining the letters, never looked ou the possible consequences of its act, and was afterwards afra'd, on grounds alike of law and expediency, to tika the fiual sttp of opening the letters. It is certain that it mide a miserable mistake, and that having held the letters co long, it would have been in a better position had it o»eued thorn before giving them up. Had no eviduue-j been found, a£ least the Government would be no worse off than now, and would not stand celf-condemned by its own admission of having taken a course illegal from the first, as it does at present. On the other hand, if the convincing conclusive evidence which the Government believed was contained in the letters had been actually found, the Government could then have justified its conduct by the plea of public necessity. But now it is a miserable bu3iness altogether, and would have been fatal to the existence of the Ministry had Parliament been in session instead of in recess.

While the battle between the authorities and tho linn has been fought on theio outsMc issues, the central question of the truth of the c!i?.i-g.:j <-f sy«t.-Q:atic fraud 0:1 the Cu-t'tina has not bceu advanced in. the slights; de^reo. Obviously such a charge is v< i-y difikulo to prove, and it would seem that thi' (loverutnoitt is unabk- yet to j».-t tohlll >Gr $H> (jviilcace ntoessaij to substantiate

it in Court. Pußsibly the failure of these other proceedings may hurry on the authorities a little on the main question. The redoubtable Brough Smyth inquiry is at last ended, aud the report has been presented. Before it closed evidence was got to show that at one time the refined and elegant Smyth used to sigu his name " Robert Smith," and that at that time hn worked as a carter on some road work, and also proof was given that he had claimed an allowance of £100 a year for some work outside hio ordinary duties, which, by his own admission, was done for him by his subordinates as voluntary work, and was not pawl for. The Hon. John Thomas Smith, a person who has filkd sxany very different parts in this colony, was called to give some eVi. dence of his knowledge of the department when he for a time held the office of Minister of Mines. Mr Smith was persuaded to cive some highly instructive evidence, and gave it with perfect consciousness of the way in which it reflected upon himself. Ifc-appeaw that there was at one time a supernumerary clerk in the oflice named Williams. This Mr Williams was well connected at Home, and was, iv fact, the relative, as Mi1 Smith mentioned with awe, of a high dignitary of the church, he believed an archbishop. Moreover, he was a favourite iv society, and many ladies made representations to the Miuister on his behalf. With all this assistance behind him, and. the spirit of toadyism in the seat of power, Mr Williams had a very goud time in tho Mining Office. He was promoted from the position of supernumerary to the third class, although there wore iv the fourth ciaaa many men of far higher claims and qualifications. Moreover, he was permitted to take a. long leave of absence on half pay to go homo " to see his agtd parents," wtieu it was quite well known to the Minister that he did not intend to come back again, and only desired to travel at the public cost. All this Mr Smith stated without appearing to see how it convicted Jiiiti of disgraceful misconduct as •a Minister. When the shamofully unfair character of his proceedings was pointed out to him by tho Chairman, (Mr Service),. Mr Smith's reply was substantially tho same as the proverbial assertion current on all sides in reference to the Stevenson, case, " They a' do it," and thero is little doubt that this is the case. Instances-as flagrant as the Williams matter, and so full of the vulgar flunkeyism, are not perhaps plentiful, but cases where ri^ht and justice are sacrificed for the sake of political capital, or to secure the vote of a member anxious toporpetrate a job of patronage, are, there is every reason to believe, rather the rule than tho excopuum But, as I said before, the report of. the Board has been presented. It is a very, mil.lspoken document indeed. It fiuds that the accusations of the officers were, allowing for some natural exaggeration, substantially confirmed, and that there could bo no hnpes of any hearty co-operation in future between Mr Smyth and the officers. The repori is virtually a verdict of guilty, with* a recommendation to mercy on account of past a^rvices. The iesult will in all likelihood be-a compromise. Mr Smyth will probably bo allowed to retire oa a pension, and, if. it were desired to add to this gentle punishment, the bitterest aggravation of it possiblo to inilicfc, he should be made to ep/nd Liia time reading tha evidence taken at the enquiry, and all tho disclosures of meanness, falsehood^ petty malignity, and tj runny in its most hateful aad contemptible forms with which it is filled.

Our University undergraduates at the ceremony of Commencement Day tried to emulate those of Oxford and Cambridge on these occasions by making a very disorderly noise throughout the proceedings. One of their number having written to a newspaper in condemnation of their doings, they accidentally discovered the author of the letter, and, in a very blackguardly way, pioceeded to duck him in a pond.. Well; all this looks very much like educate! larrikinism, or rather, it shows how little effect education has on the behaviour of a lot of boys, many of whom taking strong, larrikin tendencies with them to school, and retain them, while there. The Colonial boy's highest idea of humour does not rise above the levol of a coarse practical joke. They are not so trained, or so indued by nature, that they can afford to1 discard the restraints of law aud order, and if they attsmpt to do so, the result is a display of coarse vulgarity.

The " embracing" case, in which a lawyer's clerk was accused of offering a juryman in the case of Learmonth v Bailey mining case a bribe of £250* broke dowu on the Police Court hearing. According to the prosecutor, a good deal of bargaining took place between him and the defendant a 8 to the amount to be paid, his object, as he explained it, being to probe the matter to the bottum. All this, however, seemed capable of another construction, and when the Bench heard the curious admissions respecting himself, which the informant and sole witness had to make in the course of cross-examination, they thought it useless going any farther with the case, and dismissed it. At the Theatre there in nothing new. The pieces which have been, running several weeks ran up till Saturday night, and although a change then, took place, there is nothing to call for auy special, notice. You. will have heard by telegraph of the release of your interesting murderer Sullivan by the Supreme Court, on the ground that he was not legally detained, the Crimiual Influx Act misapplying to his case. The papers of this morning contain the arguments of the case and the judgment of the Court. Probably the authorities are very well satistied to be rid of their inconvenient prisoutr, whoai we had no right to retain, and whom ws were unable to get rid of. What is now to be done with Sullivan is another question —don« with him, I mean, by the residents of the district whera he desire 3to go aud settle 2 It can hardly be supposed that they will very much like his society, aud jet it seems they must either put up with it, or lynjh the amiable, mild mannered murderer; or finally get up a public subscription to bribe him to go somewhere else. The case is evidently one where the services of "Judge Lynch " would be invaluable, but that sometimes useful functionary was never domiciled in Victoria, and probably it would ba unwise to desire hia presence merely for the aake of a tinglo aud temporary difficulty. The community is just now excited about two daring crimes, the perpetrators of which have hitherto excited pursuit. Oue was tin outraga under circumstances of peculiar atrocity committed at Burrunbeet, in the B illarat Di&trict, upon a poor woman named Lteece, by v man who is described in the Police Gazette notice as being " very fond of dancing aud of Sunday-school teaching." The other is a robbery reported to have beea ccm mitted at the branch bank of the Bank of Viet rii, at Seymour, wht re the clerk ia said to h*ve beeu bound and gagged by a man carrying arms, who then robbed the Bank of some £700 or £800.

The Archbishop of Paris, in a letter to hia clergy ordering prayers to bs offered in the churches for the naw Parliament, siy3 the accomplishment of the programme adopted by some membe:-3 of the Legislature—for instaace. the separation of vhurch and State, and the exclusion of religion from public education, aad from other social institutions —would ba equivalent to the destruction of France.

Don Carlos, after his flight from Spain, and, when aiakinj his way to Lind :u, was closely watched by the Frensh police on his jcurney through Frmc\ During his stay at Boulogne, not only »vere policetneu stationed at the gates of the Hotel dv Nord, but when Dou Carlos tock a walk on Friday afternooD, he w.a accompanied by the.. Commis3aire (Joutral de Police, who walked by his aide. Ths same precautions were observed on Saturday afternoon, when he embarked on board the Alexandra for Folkestone,

Mr Paillip Wrouglitoo, Conservative, has been returned to Parliament from Berkshire, in place of Mr Beuyoa, lesigQcd. Mr Deuuieou, Conservative, was, on the 25th February, elected to Parliament inEist Atwood, Nottinghamshire, beating Mr Bristow, the Liberal candidate, by 187 votes. The election was held to fill a vacancy caused by the death of Viscount Gal way. The contest was bitter. There were serious riots at the workshops, in which many persons were injured. The lioa Hotel, the head-quarters of the Conservatives, was besieged by a mob, and troops had to be sent there to restore order.

The Times has a letter from Pera commeeting on the Sultan's recent indisposition,Tka writer says the moat ominous rumoisra ware spread about as to the gravity of the illutsSj and speculation was afloat as to what people might be looking forward to should afjairs come t-o the worst. The Sultan's Echt-me about altering the 01 dor of succession, to the throne seems to hnvu lieen abandoned. si>a the heir is not the Sultan's au) '->ut lst;otLf)r-,