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they never challenged before, against Lambert in 1895 does not seriously embarrass my position. It is clear I have to review the whole of the matters submitted on both occasions, and deal with them in my argument, and the evidence to be adduced. First of all, the alleged crime for which Mr. Meikle was convicted was the theft of some twenty-seven sheep and one ram—according to the indictment, belonging to the New Zealand Mortgage and Investment Company (Limited)— on the 17th day of October, 1887. The scene was at Tuturau, in the Provincial District of Southland, and I am fortunate, your Honours, to have a duplicate of the map which was put before the Court during Mr. Meikle's trial in 1887. We have also the map which was put before the Court in Lambert's trial in 1895. I hand the map up to your Honours. I have here what my client says is the actual map, or, rather, one of many, as there was a map for each juryman, and counsel were also well supplied. Your Honours will see that my client's land is the block that is marked red upon the plan It embraces about 800 acres. The company's laud was the land marked green (to the north), and aho that coloured drab (on the east of Mr. Meikle's farm). Your Honours will see that the blue land, the intervening land, was land occupied by Mr. Gregg, and that Mr. Meikle occupied a very commanding position between the two portions of the Islay Estate, which was the name of the company's property. As I shall put it to your Honours, Mr. Meikle had not merely a picked position, but really his land in quality was picked land, and it was better land than that of any of the adjoining blocks. It will be easy for your Honours from the sketch to judge distance. According to the evidence given, the distance from Gregg's place to Lambert's hut was about halt a mile and from Lambert's hut to Meikle's one mile. Lambert's hut, which is on the boundary of the land marked "Tussocks" and "Turnips" respectively, is at the junction of the roads, where the roads make a right -angle near the creek. According to the evidence given tor the prosecution at Mr. Meikle's trial, the land marked "In turnip*," which embraces some hundreds of acres was in turnips. There was a considerable mob of sheep there—about six hundred sheep— and it was from that flock that the sheep which my client was alleged to have stolen had been missed. It was conceded that the company's leasehold—the drab—was land of somewhat poor quality, and they took the sheep from there to the better land to fatten them. That land appears throughout the" depositions and the evidence as pre-emptive right. It was land over which the company had the right of purchase from the Crown under a pastoral lease. It is indicated by the letters P.R. To the south of the land there was a road which your Honours can see, and there was a fence on the north side of it. The case was that the sheep were on the turnips and that the tussock was uninviting land, and that immediately adjoining the tussock land on Mr. Meikle's property was land which had been recently ploughed, and that neither there nor in any other part of Meikle s property was there anything to attract sheep. The case, as I shall put it, for Mr. Meikle, as I have already stated to your Honours, is that his land was of better quality. I shall prove to your Honours how is was cultivated at the time. Roughly, there were 230 acres in English grasses, 200 in a crop of oats, and about 250 besides. Most of the latter was surface-sown, and some of it was poor and rough land. That, roughly speaking, is the position. Your Honours will notice that the western boundary of the turnips and the pre-emptive right and tussock land is a creek—the Waiarikiki Creek—which runs down and joins another creek named the Mimihau, and forms the south-wostcrn boundary of my client's land. With regard to the fences, there was a boundary fence the exact value of which was in dispute. It was alleged, at any rate, by the company to be absolutely sheep-proof—that is, the boundary fence between the pre-emptive right and Mr. Meikle's property. It was not in dispute that the boundary fence on Mr. Meikle's eastern boundary—that is to say, the fence dividing the company's leasehold form Mr. Meikle's land — was not a sheep-proof fence, and that it was a matter of no great difficulty for the sheep to get through Well", that is how the parties were geographically placed. So far as their other relations go, I may say, without labouring the matter, that there had been a considerable quantity of trouble previously". There had been quarrelling and litigation before the Road Board and the Land Board, and before the various Courts. Mr. Meikle, whatever else he is, is a first-class fight-ing-man, arid the subjects over which the fighting took place in these years were the usual subjects between neighbours in the country —the state of the fences, trespassing sheep, boundaries, roadlines and there was one assault case and a charge of perjury growing out of the dispute, and for that assault Meikle got one month's imprisonment. Meikle swore an information against the company's shepherd, who was concerned in the assault, for perjury and the company retaliated. Both prosecutions failed. Mr. Meikle was committed, but the juries disagreed. The shepherd was committed, and the grand .jury threw out the bill. Actually there were two troubles pending in the mouth of October, 1887, when this prosecution commenced. Mr. Meikle had an action pending for defamation, which a servant of the company was alleged to have written to a public officer in Dunedin, and a petition was pending to Parliament, in the hands of Sir George Grey, asking for full inquiry into the circumstances of Meikle's conviction for assault and perjury. Well, the parties being" so placed, the company lost sheep. AH runholders lose a certain number of shVp, I presume; but their loss was abnormal. They considered, rightly or wrongly, their losses we're abnormal, and they set about to stop the leak. They employed for that purpose a gentleman, sometimes described as a shepherd in the evidence and sometimes as a private detective. I do not know whether "private detective" is a term of distinction or not, but this man was employed ordinarily in the capacity of rousenbout or rabbiter. It appears from the evidence that he received £1 a week and found, and in addition he could keep any rabbit-skins he got. He had been previously employed for the detection of sheep-stealing. They employed Lambert on a very singular basis—the basis of "no cure no pay." It was that he should be paid £50—not if he searched for and collected evidence and gave his time to assisting in getting up a case which the company or its legal advisers thought a good case; it was not even the payment of £50 for securing a conviction for a crime already committed; but it, was really the payment of £50 to secure a conviction for a crime which had not yet taken place. That was in substance the bargain made with Lambert. Now, £50 is a very big consideration to a man in that position. Of course, the

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