The Poverty Bay Herald AND East Coast News Letter. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. Wednesday, October 1, 1879.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume VI, Issue 908, 1 October 1879, Page 2

The Poverty Bay Herald AND East Coast News Letter. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. Wednesday, October 1, 1879.

What's the next case 1 Are there any more charges of " riotously and routousry" to come on 1 Have there been any more forcible entries? Is the process towards the committal for a cxnminal newspaper libel to be gone through 1 Or some information laid m connection with a dishonored cheque? When will the charges for " conspiracy " be entertained, and when the one for perjury 1 Proceed, gentlemen of the law. It must be fine fun for you while it lasts \ and profitable likewise. Why, very soon every man m Gisborne will have been committed to take his trial for some criminal offence to come off somewhere else, at aome time or other not yet stated. And everything is so very much sub j-udice that one who has to write for the Press does not know whether he's going to put his foot m it, and be called upon under information to answer to a charge for something he has said or shouldn't)* have said. There is not a man now high or low, gentle or simple, one meets m the street who is not bound over m liis own or some one else's recognizances to appear to answer for some offence, or is not a witness, or a prosecutor, or defendant, or m some way or other connected with some case that has been heard and not finally disposed of, and has got to come on again m some other shape, all of which is very exciting and some of it very amusing and laughable. " Things are getting very hot m the Bay,,' was a remark we heard more than once yesterday, and we think so. A stranger reading the reports m the local papers and not aware of the under current and the secret springs of machinery which creates these cases, would think we Avere all a very rowdy, disreputable, law-bi*eaking people, Now, we really, and m fact, are nothing of the kind. We are a quiet,peaceable-living people, attending our churches and subscribing to the support of ministers ; having wives j to scold and love us as the humour may be with them ; being taxpayers and highly responsible, respectable insn. But here we are nearly all of us living m the community committed to stand our trials before judges m wigs, and barristers a la mode ; or we have got to take our preliminary canters previous to the great events to follow. It is said it is all the doings of the blessed lawyers, and that if we could only take them out into the harbour m the schooner " Telegraph," and serve them as it is written the Emperor Nero served his mother — that is by scuttling the vessel" she was m, and letting her sink— we should not be long before we fall back

into our normal state of peace and quiet, with just now and again an irate editor walking into a brother editor, which serves to entertain people at their breakfast or tea tables. But, we ask, do people much longer expect that we can supply all the exciting matter that is just now en- J gaging the attention of the Courts, for the small charge of one penny per night 1 Why, the " forcible entry" information and the police business which followed was well worth six times the money, and the charge* which concluded last night a little before midnight, m which the word. " routously " so frequently occurs, should be worth twice as much. Our reporter demands, and reasonably we think, additional remuneration. He says it is not so much the work that knocks him over as the hard-swearing he has been compelled to take down. He feels that he is gradually becoming demoralised, and that he ought to have some addition made for loss of morals ; and the Editor — the hard times he has of it, and the terrible prospects which are before him, i why he ought to be looked upon as worth his weight m silver of fifteen stone. It is only on such occasions as are now current he comes to learn that everybody knows what an editor's duties are better than himself. One man walks into his office, and says, referring to one or other of the cases m hand, " you are not going to report that rubbish, are you V We say yes. He answers with a stare, " surely, you'll do nothing of the kind." Then another drops m, and speaking of the same case, says, " Now, you ought to give ;a very full verbatim report of all this — the public will expect it. If it is not reported it will be looked upon that some improper pressure has been brought to bear on you." And then what advice we do get about our "leaders " to be sure ! It is here we feel that the editor knows nothing aboiit his business, but that everyone else is much better fitted to be an editor than himself. The letters, too, that we have received and inserted, we are told should not have been inserted, while the letters we have withheld ought, of course, to have appeared, and would have appeared, only that we had received a a hint m high quarters that they were not to be published. But we must not occupy too much of our space just now m dilating on the past, as our reporter informs us that we shall have to allow considerable room for the " next case," which is to come on, and which is likely to occupy long hours for many days to come. We suppose, when everyone has been committed, and the witnesses have been bound over, there will be fine weather for a bit until the gale begins to freshen at the opening of the Supreme Courts. And so we make room for the " next case."